Fire Burns (Book 1 of Avatar: the Last Dragon)
by Dapper Stormtrooper
Summary: Akodo Zuko is a samurai. That is all he was ever wanted to be. How will he survive now that he has brought shame to his father and his nation? Join the adventures of Prince Zuko as he struggles to make his way in the world, earn his father's respect and salvage some fraction of his honor. Fusion AU Set before the events of the series. Multiple books to follow. Updates Weekends!
1. Kindling

**A/N See profile page for DisclaimerTM and a general overview of the work**

Chapter 1 Kindling

 **Early Autumn, Year 1 of the reign of Fire-Lord Ozai**

* * *

"But why a sword uncle?" young Zuko asked.

The two figures sat on either side of a low stone table in the middle of the palace garden. The boy who had spoken was thin and pale, with dark hair and yellow eyes. His uncle, Iroh, was a short powerfully built man, with dark circles under his eyes as though he had not slept well for a while.

"So, you don't want one?" asked Iroh, pretending confusion. "I suppose we could just put your gempukku training off for a few more year-"

"NO!" shouted Zuko, horror showing in his face. "I just don't understand why I swear my oaths with a sword? If I can firebend why should I need a sword?"

"Is a samurai defined by his bending then?" his uncle retorted.

"No Uncle, a samurai is defined by Bushido and by his honor," Zuko responded by rote.

"So, teaches the dojo of Lion, yes," Iroh said smiling gently, "and what oaths do you take as a samurai of the Lion, prince of the Fire-Nation and child of the line of Akodo?"

"To uphold the honor of my family, my nation, and my people. To serve the Fire-Lord, long may he reign, and to protect the people of the Fire-Nation," Zuko chirped back in the manner of a child repeating a long-known truth.

"For how long?" queried Iroh, cocking one bushy eyebrow.

"…What?"

Iroh just raised his other eyebrow, shrugged his shoulders and began sipping his tea, humming softly to himself. Zuko, despite only having his Uncle as a sensei for a few months, knew this meant that he had probably _already_ been told the answer. Iroh would sit, happily waiting, sipping his tea, with excruciating patience, while Zuko dredged the answer up from memory.

Zuko was aware that he was not very bright, at least not in comparison to his younger sister Azula. His sister, and often even his father, had made _certain_ he was aware. For the most part he didn't mind this and endeavored to make up for his lack with a methodical, dogged persistence and, as his uncle Iroh observed, with sporadic flashes of vicious cunning that was more than a little reminiscent of his father and grandfather.

After a solid minute of musing, wracking his brain, Zuko answered. "I do not know uncle."

"No? They no longer ensure that you memorize your oaths of fealty? What _are_ they teaching children these days?" Iroh grumbled without any real anger. "When _I_ was a boy I was made to recite my oaths while hung by my toes and birched for every word out of place!"

"Were that the case I would imagine you would be taller Uncle," replied Zuko wryly.

"That _would_ be true were I not as clever as I am handsome," Iroh said jovially. "Obviously my brother took longer to learn it." Zuko's father was tall, much like his father had been.

Zuko blanched. "We should not speak of the Fire-Lord that way uncle, he does not tolerate-"

Iroh waved him away. "My apologies, my prince. I spoke out of turn," he said bowing gravely where he sat. "Your honored father is an admirable Fire-Lord, certainly much better than I would have been." He forced himself to smile, disguising a pain not even Zuko was unobservant enough to miss.

The two of them shared a silence as Zuko allowed his Uncle to grieve again for his lost son. It was known, far and wide, that Crown-Prince Iroh, eldest son of Fire-Lord Azulon had lost his mind with grief over the loss of his only son, Lu Ten, during the great siege of Ba Sing Se. After learning the news, he had thrown himself at the at the Earth-Kingdom Soldiers, slaughtering hundreds, until a lucky strike had snapped his leg. His troops had extracted him, and when he awoke his fury had been replaced by a deep and desperate sadness. Claiming that he would lead no more sons of the Fire-Nation to their deaths in this war he ordered the siege lifted and resigned his command. It was said that this so enraged Fire-Lord Azulon that he named his second son Prince Ozai, Zuko's father, as his successor. Then had passed away from apoplexy the very next day.

Zuko silently wondered what it must be like, to have failed so utterly that he had lost his son, his crown _and_ his father in the span of a single month. Surely seppuku would have been better than to live in disgrace like this? Zuko couldn't help but feel pity for the old man, a feeling accompanied by disgust and more than a little guilt.

 _Uncle Iroh should have at least declared himself a deathseeker and died, serving his father and avenging his son through battle,_ thought Zuko in a voice which sounded a great deal like his father's. _Instead, he ran away, crawled back home to live in indolence and dishonor._

Despite all that, and all that he had been taught, Zuko still felt pity. He liked his Uncle, had liked Lu Ten and grieved for him as well. It engendered a practical maelstrom of conflicting emotions that was simply too much for a nine-year-old to process, so he shelved it and waited patiently for his Uncle, as was polite.

Iroh shook his head and looked up, startled to have drifted away on his young pupil. "I must apologize again my prince, I seem to have gotten lost in my thoughts. Old age you know." He smiled ruefully.

Zuko shook his head feigning ignorance "But I must thank _you_ , Uncle, for your patience with this unworthy student, but I still cannot recall the exact wording of the oath of fealty." His formal words allowed his uncle peace of mind, pretending he had not been a witness to what should have been a private act of grief. Zuko's mother, before her sudden and inexplicable disappearance, had made sure that Zuko and, to the best of her ability at least, Azula had learned courtesy.

The lady Ursa's disappearance was another thing Zuko was unable to process. His mother had been a constant presence in his life until he had turned seven and began his training in earnest. She was gentle and caring, her very presence made Zuko smile. Even when he had been battered and bruised, exhausted and sick of his training, a simple smile from his mother had been enough to make him square his shoulders and continue on. She could calm Azula in her tantrums, she made him forget how bad he was at firebending, she even made his _father_ smile, something he almost never seemed to do otherwise.

But now she was gone, and Zuko had the feeling that his father wouldn't even tell him why even if he had dared to ask.

One did not _question_ the Fire-Lord.

Iroh smirked knowingly. "Not nearly so unworthy as you think my nephew," he said bowing once more, a gesture not dissimilar from an opponent recognizing a good move in Pai Sho. He stood, and began to pace back and forth, a mannerism Zuko knew to mean he would now be giving a lecture.

"In the beginning the people of fire moved from place to place, flickering to and fro like the wildfires. It was not until the Warlord Akodo brought all the people of fire into one nation and taught us bushido that we stopped wandering and started making a better place for ourselves. Our duty is always to the Fire-Nation, it's safety our charge, its lands our home, it's people our… children." He shook his head, dismissing his grief much more rapidly this time. "This is why our oaths are to the Fire-Lord, the Nation and to Honor, with honor being the last and most important. They all flow from one to the other, you see? Honor begets good conduct, which is the foundation of the Nation. The Nation and its people are the foundation upon which the Fire-Lord stands, that he might better serve them."

"That seems odd, don't the peasants serve the samurai, and through them the Fire-Lord?" asked Zuko.

"Indeed nephew. This is the natural paradox of Bushido, to serve while being served. To command while protecting. To fulfill the obligations of duty while still showing compassion. A samurai's life is filled with such difficult and confusing choices."

"Wait, it's confusing on PURPOSE?!" Zuko shouted, all sense of decorum lost. "Why would Akodo make it deliberately confusing?!"

"Because it is in the nature of conflict to make us better. To live life unchallenged is a dull thing indeed. It is _adversity_ that strengthens us, grants us wisdom and character. The unexamined life is… "Iroh cast about looking for an appropriate metaphor "is… WEAK TEA!" he finished, grinning, holding aloft his cup.

Zuko rolled his eyes, his uncle's love of tea bordered on obsession.

"It's too complicated," the boy grumbled, "I don't even like _Pai Sho._ "

Pai Sho, the great game of strategy, had too many shifting rules and stratagems for Zuko's taste. What was a good play one moment could be revealed to be nothing but folly in the next heartbeat. He preferred Go, with its two colors, straight lines and its simplicity. Not to mention it was the only game he had a fighting chance of beating Azula or their friend Mai at.

His uncle's grinned broadened. "Oh, don't worry nephew we'll get to Pai Sho soon."

Zuko groaned, wincing his eyes in feigned, for the most part, pain.

"But as to the oath," Iroh began, picking back up where he left off, "I, Akodo Iroh, to swear to serve and protect the Fire-Lord, his heirs, and successors and to serve faithfully and well those they have placed above me. My body, I place as a shield against the enemies of the Nation and I will forever more serve the people of Fire with compassion, courage, and courtesy. My word is sincere, my honesty unquestioned. Above all, honor shall guide me, and with this sword," here Iroh reverently mimed receiving a katana, "I shall keep true to this oath. Even if all friendship and glory desert me. Even though the land be swallowed by the sea, and the very Sun falls from the sky."

"But why a sword? It's not as though the sun will fall from the sky and my bending disappear. It's an impossibility," Zuko said quietly staring at his own tea.

"And if it did? What would you do? If the enemy was at the gates and the Sun itself was gone? How long do you keep to your oaths?" Iroh asked. All playfulness had evaporated from him as suddenly as a lightning strike. His face, in this moment, was a dread reckoning of his father, the late Fire-Lord Azulon, and the very image of the man the waterbenders had nicknamed "the Dragon of the West"

"I guess…" Zuko was deep in thought, still looking down at the tea in his hands, and had missed the sudden change in his uncle. "If the sun disappeared... it wouldn't change anything about who I am, or what I have to do so... I guess… I _would_ need a sword then?" He looked up expectantly at his uncle.

"Yes." Iroh grinned fiercely and proudly. "Yes, indeed."

* * *

 **High Summer, Year 5 of the reign of Fire-Lord Ozai**

His father had not come to the ceremony.

Of course, he hadn't, not only was the Fire-Lord exceptionally busy, but it wouldn't have been appropriate. The Fire-Lord should NOT visit a simple coming of age ceremony Zuko told himself. Even if Zuko _was_ his only son. Despite these patently obvious facts, Zuko confessed, if only in his own mind, that he was disappointed. He had felt certain that his father would have made some token appearance, playing it off as coincidence. And perhaps he had, but Zuko's focus had been elsewhere. Mostly on survival.

The gempukku trials for a firebender of the Lion Dojo were always the most difficult, made more so because he was a Prince of the line of Akodo newly turned thirteen, now the _Crown-_ Prince. It only made sense, _weakness_ could not be allowed to parade around claiming authority. The more authority to be wielded the more punishing the trials. Which explained why Zuko had been training for this day since he was seven years old. He remembered his Uncle describe, in great and somewhat gruesome detail, the story of Fire-Lord Yokoma's seven children. Yokoma, the great-grandson of Akodo himself, had died before his eldest son had reached the age of adulthood, so his eldest not only had to suffer through the normal, exceptionally severe trials, but additional trials as was befitting a Fire-Lord. Needless to say, he did not survive them. Neither did the five brothers after him until Matsu, who was only two at the time of her father's death, finally succeeded. The eleven-year regency was one of the longest in the Fire-Nation's several thousand years of history, but the shugenja of fire always made certain that only the worthy would be allowed to carry the daisho, the two swords of a samurai, and to lead Akodo's Nation.

The swords Zuko had been granted were old, seeming more family heirlooms that practical weaponry. At least that's what he had thought before he made the requisite thousand cuts with them. The steel wasn't shiny, it was almost a dull grey, but it was very strong and very sharp. Most of all it had a _weight_ to it. As though it had been used for great purpose. Commenting as such his Uncle Iroh chortled his usual laugh.

"I requested those for you specifically. Those are the blades of Prince Ken-Ryu, your Great-grandfather Sozin's Uncle. The brother of Fire-Lord Oda. He is one of only eleven recorded cases of a child of the Fire-Lord born without bending."

"He was a-" began Zuko, stunned.

"Yes indeed, and in spite of that he survived _all_ of the same trials you have just undergone," smirked Iroh. "He became a great general and established the first of our colonies in the Earth-Kingdom." Iroh winked. "And if you think HE was fearsome my Aunts Lo and Li will burn you to ash with a look, and neither of them can bend either!"

This shut Zuko up as he had felt that, even with his bending, he might have survived his trials only by the barest luck.

It was hard to really say how he had done in the trials, the first part had kept him awake for nearly three days, which had distorted his perceptions. He did feel confident that Azula would have no trouble with them, a fact which both pleased him and engendered a fair amount of envy. He would, of course, never tell her that. It wasn't as though she was _lacking_ in confidence.

All in all, passing the ceremony made him feel… clean. As though all the things that had made him a child had been burned away in a cleansing fire. Certainly, he was taller now than he had been when he'd begun his training, but he hadn't really felt like an adult until he had spoken his oath and received his daisho. Life would be simpler now he was sure. Hold to your oaths, serve the Nation and your father, what could be simpler?

"Oh, poor Zuzu, what happened? Did you lose your bending in the trials?" a familiar voice asked as he strode through the halls of the palace.

"Azula?" Zuko said, standing stock still, his eyes narrowing. "Is playing this game wise? You should be at your studies."

This was a game that the four of them, Zuko, Azula, Mai and Ty Lee had all played since they could walk. Sneaking through guarded corridors, stalking each other like prey, until pouncing out, tapping the victim on the forehead and then running away laughing. Azula was very good at it, but surprisingly not as good as Mai. It was one of the few areas she tolerated being second at. In recent years, however, she'd taken great delight in announcing her presence and yet _still_ remaining completely hidden. Much to Zuko's consternation.

"As if I need to listen to some ridiculous old man tell me about our _glorious_ history," she said the sneer on her face obvious from her tone of voice. Which seemed to be coming from Zuko's left, so he placed his back to a nearby pillar and faced that direction.

"I always enjoyed history. It teaches us how to learn from our mistakes," Zuko said, scanning the shadows and a particularly suspicious potted plant.

"And yet…" came a voice from right above him, "you never do."

Zuko sagged in defeat and raised his hands in mock surrender. His sister, who had somehow attached herself to the very column he had chosen to protect his rear, executed a perfect flip, tapped him on the forehead in midair and, as always, stuck the landing.

"You threw your voice?" he asked calmly, trying to mask a touch of sullenness.

"No, not really, the buttresses in this hallway make sound behave unpredictably," she admitted rather uninterestedly as she made a production of examining her nails.

"It is good to see you sister," Zuko said, bowing. "I would inquire after your studies but I doubt you are capable of anything less than perfection."

She rolled her eyes. "Always so unfailingly polite. _Mother_ would be proud." She bowed despite the sarcasm. "It is good to see you as well brother."

"What was that about my bending?" asked Zuko, motioning his sister to walk with him, it was nearly lunchtime and he was starving.

"The katana?" Azula said walking backward ahead of him. "Everyone knows only samurai who can't bend wear _both_ if their swords out in public."

"Uncle wears his," Zuko said, furrowing his brow in consternation.

"Uncle is as mad as a spring moose-rabbit."

"He is _not_ , he's just… eccentric."

"You don't have to defend him just because he was your sensei. He is a coward and a failure. He should have died taking Ba Sing Se."

"But he didn't. He tried to I think, but the spirits saw fit to grant him his life. He keeps to his honor as best he can."

"Ash and bone, Zuko" Azula swore, stopping in place, "you're starting to _sound_ like him as well"

Zuko shrugged. "I wear the daisho because they are reminders of the work I put in, the pain I suffered and the oaths I took."

"You realize how pompous you sound right?" she said with a snort. Zuko rolled his eyes at her and continued walking. "Well," she continued, trailing after him, " _my_ katana will be placed on a little wooden stand to gather dust after my gempukku. I prefer bending. You and Uncle can wave your big _knives_ around like primitives and pretend it still means something."

Zuko paused for a moment. "Actually, I just thought of something Uncle said to me that you might actually find useful."

"Oh? And what is _that_ Zuzu" said Azula her usual smirk on her face

"Well _Azi_ ," Azula stiffened at that, for all that she was happy to use their mother's pet name for him, she most _definitely_ did not care for hers. "There are two things that come to mind, the first," and he began stroking an imaginary beard in imitation of their Uncle Iroh, "is that all warfare is deception."

Azula, now mildly furious at being lectured on beginner's tactics sneered. "And the other?"

Zuko grinned. "Teamwork is the foundation upon which all successful military operations are built."

And with that as a cue the two girls, Mai and Ty Lee, who had been shadowing them for a minute, darted from either side and both tapped Azula on the forehead. All three ran in different directions laughing maniacally. Azula gave an indignant squawk and gave chase.

* * *

 **Autumn, Year 5 of the reign of Fire-Lord Ozai**

"Father, I…"

"Silence! get on your feet and fight me, boy"

"To strike the Fire-Lord is treason father! If I have offended you I offer my life in recompense!"

"You will fight for your HONOR!"

"Father I meant no disrespect! I only thought of our duty, to our people! Please, father, I beg you-"

"You dare? You DARE to _beg_ in front of me? You will LEARN respect, in pain and SUFFERING!"

Then there was nothing but fire and pain.

* * *

 _Oh good, just a nightmare,_ Zuko thought waking up in the dark.

 _If it was just a nightmare, why can't you see? w_ hispered a voice in his mind.

Zuko began to panic, his breathing sharp, ragged, as he timidly reached for his head.

It was covered in gauze.

He began to hyperventilate and started clawing at his bandages.

"Zuko!" came a voice from his bedside.

"Uncle?" Zuko froze.

"You must be quiet my boy, your sentence is to be carried out as soon as you awaken, by order of the Fire-Lord."

"My- my what?"

"Your father… The Fire-Lord grew very angry Zuko. He has refused to allow you to commit seppuku and refuses your entry into the deathseekers."

"Then what…?"

"You are banished, nephew. Banished from the sight of the Fire-Lord and his city. To be carried out as soon as you awaken."

"Banished? But… But... he..."

"We will speak more on this but we must hurry. I have packed our bags…"

" _Our_? Uncle, you can't come with me! You're already on thin ice as it is! Father will…"

"Your father will be glad to see the back of me," Iroh snapped, "and you will not survive a day without help. Be silent and get up. If you are well enough to make so much noise you are well enough to walk!" Zuko heard his uncle begin to move frantically around the room.

Zuko carefully swung his feet over the edge the bed. His head felt light, as though it was stuffed with cotton. His chest ached painfully as soon as he tried to take his feet and he groaned in agony.

He heard Iroh hiss. "Be careful boy! He broke three of your ribs, not to mention your collarbone"

It was all starting to come back to him, his father… The Fire-Lord had kicked him while he was on his knees asking, _begging,_ for forgiveness. The horrible popping noise his collarbone had made. The Fire-Lord's boot coming down on his chest, a cracking brittle sound. The Fire-Lord was not a small man and Zuko… Zuko was only a few months over thirteen, not anywhere near to his full growth yet. Then a strike of fire, so hot it was almost white, down on his…

"I'm blind, aren't I?" Zuko said quietly.

There was a long pause. "I don't know nephew, only time will tell."

* * *

 **Midwinter Year 5 of the reign of Fire-Lord Ozai**

The eye patch was not a good look for him.

He had had to threaten to smash his uncle's favorite teapot before he was allowed a mirror. It wasn't pretty. From ruined left ear to his unmarked nose, from missing eyebrow to jaw, nearly the entirety of the left side of his face was a dark burn, half melted. His left eye was functionally useless, or so he was assured by the doctor his uncle had brought. The doctor had also stressed that he had to keep the eyepatch on until the risk of infection went away.

It was NOT a good look.

"This is insane," Zuko said bluntly.

"I know. The fact that they want an entire koku for a small barrel of sweet northern jasmine tea leaf is outrageous. I've half a mind to burn their shop down for impudence" replied Iroh watching his teapot.

"I meant the terms of my banishment Uncle," Zuko said gritting his teeth.

"Oh. Yes. That too is insane."

"Why the Avatar of all things? Why not ask me to conquer Ba Sing Se or subjugate the Northern water tribe or… teach Azula to sing? Something slightly _less_ impossible."

His uncle smiled. "It is good that you have not lost your sense of humor. It will keep you sane in the times ahead."

"Sane? SANE? What about this situation is SANE to you?!" Zuko shouted, furious. "I have been banished by my father for arguing with an honorless fool who wanted to condemn an entire DIVISION of soldiers to be massacred... just as a distraction!"

"Your ribs must be healing nicely if you can yell this much."

"Then," Zuko continued, ignoring his uncle, "my father half blinds me and sends me out to capture the AVATAR! Someone who's not been seen since the days of Sozin!" His voice rose in volume and pitch as he went, cracking once on "father"

Near to hyperventilation, the pain in his collar and chest still agony Zuko stared into the mirror at his mutilated face.

Iroh sat on the bed next to him gently putting an arm around his uninjured shoulder. "It would seem, nephew, that _your_ sun has fallen out of the sky too," he said quietly.

Zuko's mouth dropped open, remembering his oaths and the conversation he'd had with this same man less than four years ago. He nodded, his face settling into a mask of grim determination.

"Guess I'll need a sword then."

"He _must_ be dead," Zuko said a few days later.

They had moved into a new place, a small cottage, more a shack in truth, overlooking the capital, Otosan Uchi. Zuko was still forbidden entry, but not forbidden to see it. He almost wished that he was.

"Hmmm?" asked Iroh contemplating a Pai Sho puzzle.

"The Air Avatar. He never came forward to oppose Fire-Lord Sozin, or grandfather, or even you at Ba Sing Se," Zuko said musing over the scroll.

"Hrmm," grunted Iroh less pleasantly, his failure at the walled city still an unpleasant memory.

"He'd have to be over a hundred-years-old right? Surely he passed away."

"Were that the case then…" Iroh mused questioningly.

"Well... he'd be in the water tribe then?"

"Which would explain my father's policy."

Zuko looked confused. "What policy?"

Iroh shrugged and looked at him expectantly.

"Uncle we don't have time for your games! You are not my sensei any longer," Zuko said bitterly.

"When you have learned to think for yourself then you will no longer _need_ a sensei," Iroh replied acidly. "But until that time, whatever _meager_ instruction I can provide, I will give."

They glared at each other for a moment.

"I apologize, uncle," Zuko said slumping in shame "I should not be rude when you have done nothing but help me"

Iroh nodded. "Accepted. But you must understand nephew, this… quest will not be a sprint to the finish. It will be a marathon. The one thing you _do_ have is time. Use it, and THINK."

"I think father does not mean for me succeed," Zuko said quietly. "I think I shall never return home."

"Nonsense!" Iroh shouted, his powerful voice echoing slightly in the valleys around their tiny cabin, "If that were the case your father would have disowned you, stripped you of your title and declared you Ronin." He paused and then continued again more softly "You _will_ return home someday Prince Zuko. Now," he continued, his voice picking up life again, "my father's policy with regards to the _Water_ -tribe." He gave "water" a slight inflection.

They sat in silence, Zuko thinking, Iroh sipping his tea and occasionally moving a Pai Sho piece.

"You mean, grandfather's _Naval_ policy?" Zuko said after a long moment.

Iroh smiled. "Yes indeed. My father thought much as you did. That the time of the air nomads was good and done. He expected a water Avatar to emerge at any moment, which is why _we_ rule the seas. The Iron Fleet outnumbers and out masses all the other navies of the world by a factor of ten to make up for the waterbenders' natural superiority there."

"Well, that makes it easier! The water primitives are barely even-"

"Unless of course the Avatar died again and is in the Earth-Kingdom, or…."

"Or…?

"I do not wish to over complicate things but…" Iroh pulled on his beard musingly, "the air nomads were known for being… odd."

"Odd how?"

"Strange rumors of stranger powers, my nephew. They could go without food for whole months or years while meditating. They could fly without bending. They could turn invisible like wind and slip through doorjambs to steal freshly baked pies."

"I'm pretty sure that that last one was a fox spirit uncle."

"Nevertheless, it is, in my opinion at least, more than possible that the Avatar of air still lives. Quietly meditating in a cave somewhere."

"So, you're saying that the Avatar could be… just about anywhere and of any nation?" Zuko began to quake with barely contained fury. "That's USELESS! Why in the Sun's name…?"

"Control yourself nephew," Iroh snapped, "Your rage does you no good here. I simply mean to point out the possibilities. _All_ the possibilities, no matter how complicated that makes the situation."

Zuko took a moment to bring his temper, much closer to the surface these days, under control. "I cannot believe that the Avatar of air still lives, surely he would have thrown himself at us by now to avenge his people? Why would he just sit in a cave?"

"Why indeed? It would seem that you do not understand the air nomads at all nephew," Iroh said, rising to his feet. "As Akodo said 'Understanding…"

"Is the beginning of Victory.'" Zuko replied. "Where are you going uncle?"

"To fetch dinner, and… a few other things. Do your thousand cuts and kata forms. Should you be done before I return, meditate, you will need a clear mind for this."

* * *

" _This_ is insane!" Zuko said, roughly slapping one of the scrolls Iroh had brought for him to read.

"You keep using that word nephew, I begin to think you don't know what it means. You must learn that simply because _you_ do not understand does not automatically mean something is nonsensical," Iroh replied calmly sipping his tea.

"But complete non-attachment? Pacifism? And yet they somehow think that they still follow bushido? What is the point of living without _caring_ about anything?"

"An excellent question nephew. They believed, as I think you must have already read, that attachment leads to fear and sadness when that which they care for inevitably dies or is lost. This, in turn, muddies the soul which leads to dishonorable conduct."

"But, again, if you don't care then what's the point of living? Why bother existing in the world if you're not going to be a part of it?"

"Name for me the eight great dojos of the world," Iroh commanded suddenly.

Zuko's mouth dropped open, what did this have to do with anything? But he rooted through his mind finding the answer his uncle asked for.

"Here in the Fire-Nation, we have the Lion, like us, and the Scorpion, like Azula. In the Earth-Kingdom they have the dojos of the Crab and the Mantis. The Water-Tribe has the Dojo of the Crane in the north and the Unicorn in the south… You said eight, uncle…? I only know six."

"You forgot the Air-Nation."

"Oh!" Zuko grabbed another scroll from the discordant heap scattered around him. "Here! The Phoenix and…. the Dragon. Huh. Can't both of those creatures breathe fire?"

"They can also both fly, but it does seem odd does it not? Also, that the Crab, a water creature, should be found in the Earth-Kingdom and the Crane, another flying creature, in Water-Tribe. It suggests to me that once we were not all a divided as we are now. It also suggests, to me at least, that to belong to a dojo is not necessarily a matter of element, or of birth nation, but of spirit and personal philosophy. A waterbender could be a Lion, and a firebender could be a Dragon."

"But they are our _enemies_ uncle!"

"The _Nations_ they traditionally belong to are our enemy. Can a way of thinking be anyone's enemy?"

"That's insa-" Zuko caught himself, "That seems... unusual uncle."

Iroh laughed heartily. "Indeed nephew! It is indeed. But it is evident that different people have different ways of looking at the world, and that these different views do lend themselves to certain elements and nations, but not to exclusion!"

"What is your point uncle?"

"My point is that _understanding_ is possible. All of the dojos have their root in bushido and bushido has its root in the truth of the world. It is possible to _understand_ a person without accepting that their path is the right one."

"I wouldn't want to be anything but a Lion uncle," Zuko said, after a minute of contemplation.

"And I'm not saying you should nephew, but it is possible to understand the other dojos and the other nations. And 'Understanding…"

"…is the beginning of victory," Zuko said with a fierce grin.

* * *

 **A/N:**

 **Hello and welcome to the end of the chapter! I hope you enjoyed it even HALF as much as I did while writing it. Updates on weekends.**

 **If you have any questions, comments, or general feedback please feel free to comment. Concrit is welcome. I regret nothing.**

 **NEXT WEEK on a very special "Avatar: The Last Dragon"...**  
 **Iroh drinks tea! Zuko learns that foreigners are people too! Azula throws shade!**

 **TUNE IN. Same Zuko time, Same Zuko channel!**

 **Original post date: 22 APR 2018**

 **updated: 28 APR (because FFN has A PROBLEM with my scene break markers)**


	2. Sparks

**A/N: the following is rated P for philosophical.**

 **Reader discretion is advised.**

Chapter 2 Sparks

 **Early Spring, Year 6 of the reign of Fire-Lord Ozai**

The training was hard.

Harder than anything Zuko had ever done in his time before gempukku. That had been _easy_ by comparison; be where you are supposed to be, do as you are told. If you failed, you just kept at it until you _didn't_ fail anymore. From a purely physical perspective, there had not been much that was out of Zuko's reach, such was his persistence. Pain suffered was simply weakness leaving the body, and a mark of honor for the effort one put forth.

This training was different however. This training required _thinking_.

After a more than a month of studying a seemingly endless supply of ancient scrolls and texts that Iroh provided Zuko flew into a rage brought on by idleness, cabin fever and, very prominently, the onset of teenage hormones. Iroh decided that a more _physical_ approach would be required. At least if he didn't want the rest of the house burnt down it would be. Despite not being able to bend the different elements, their forms, their styles, were still something that could be taught and learned. Much in the way the nations of the world taught their samurai who couldn't bend, the Ji-Samurai, the non-bending styles were a reflection of the philosophies and _tone_ of their bending counterparts. Iroh decided to begin with what he knew best aside from fire, earth style.

"It seems so slow uncle," Zuko said, after having run through a few of the earth kata. "Surely the youngest firebender could slip through their guard?"

"And yet the Earth-Kingdom has withstood our assault for more than a hundred years," Iroh said dryly. "Perhaps you should travel to Ba Sing Se and tell them they are too slow to fight us? Maybe they will surrender in gratitude for your observations? Come at me, and I will show you the strength of the stone."

Less than a minute later Zuko found himself on the ground, one of his ribs very nearly broken.

His uncle sighed. "Like running headlong into a mountain isn't it? I remember thinking as you did once, but every man, woman, and child in that kingdom has a toughness to them our strongest soldiers must train their whole lives to match. Stone does not burn nephew."

"Then how do we defeat them? It must be possible or we wouldn't be winning the war."

"Stone does not burn, but it can be chipped, cracked and shattered. Many angles, many directions. The mistake young firebenders, like yourself, make when facing the stone is to simply try to overwhelm it. This you cannot do. Stone does not burn. It is also tempting, in battle, as in personal combat, to allow a slower but tougher opponent to set the tempo. This you also cannot allow. You must be the wolf-bat to their platypus-bear. You must be faster."

Zuko frowned, he would never be fast, not like Azula was fast. "But it _is_ possible to overwhelm them, uncle?"

"…Yes."

"How?"

Iroh sighed in consternation of his nephew's lack of confidence. "Well, outnumbering them ten to one is a good start."

"I meant in personal combat uncle."

"I know what you meant. I will show you a way if only so you do not go seeking it on your own. But only," he narrowed his eyes at Zuko, "If you swear, on your honor, not to try this without my express permission and supervision. It will be many, many years before you are ready for this."

Zuko nodded vigorously. "I do so swear uncle, by the name of our ancestor I do so swear."

Iroh smiled a toothy, almost feral, grin. "Then watch."

He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and began to perform a sinuous circling motion with his arms, swaying back and forth. Fire gathered at his fingertips, the first two on each hand extended, and went from normal orange to blue to nearly white. Reaching the crescendo of the kata, he opened his eyes and thrust his right hand out, up the mountain towards a nearby boulder.

CRACK-A- **BOOOOOOM!**

 _Lightning._

The lightning bolt ripped through the air, stunning Zuko, and causing the stone to explode, flinging debris everywhere. Zuko's mouth dropped open in wonder.

"That... was... AWESOME!" he shouted, his voice cracking with excitement, a childlike glee painting his mutilated face. "That was the coolest thing I've ever seen! When can I..." he stopped, remembering his oath, then coughed and regained his composure. "That is to say, when do you think I will be ready for this technique?"

Iroh frowned, now having second thoughts, "I do not know Zuko, perhaps never."

"Never? But you said..."

"It requires a great deal of control and precision. In thought and action. Perhaps if you ever decide to stop measuring yourself by your sister's ability and your father's unrealistic expectations you will have the confidence you require."

"I am always willing to try uncle," Zuko said looking crestfallen. "But you know that I am not the quickest of students."

"Bah!" Iroh said genially. "The lightning bolt maybe faster, but the volcano leaves more devastation in its path! There is a reason I chose to begin with earth and not just because it is the element I am most familiar with after my own." He put his hand on Zuko's shoulder. "I see the strength of the stone in you boy. I don't think you realize how rare a person you are, to have suffered so much and still keep going. Any other boy your age would have never even _woken up_ after your Agni Kai. And yet here you are, having lost more than many ever had, sword in hand ready to continue on. There is a strength in you that we rarely see in our nation these days. Truly I am proud of you."

Zuko blinked his remaining eye in surprise, and more than a little confusion. "I'm… I'm not _that_ admirable uncle. I'm a disgraced prince, living in a shack." He frowned. "I'm not sure if I should be offended by you comparing me to earthbenders. They are our _enemy_ after all."

"The best opponent is the one you admire Zuko. How boring to live a life unchallenged by worthy foes! Strength is not exclusive to the Fire-Nation alone, otherwise, we would already rule the world."

Uncle had already made this point many times during Zuko's training. "I suppose then I will accept your compliment uncle," Zuko said still frowning. "But that does not change the fact that I am not very quick."

"You don't have to be the fastest Zuko, just fast enough. Look at me! Do I look like a sprinter to you?" Iroh said patting his pot belly, which had grown considerably since he had come home from Ba Sing Se.

"No uncle," Zuko said, pondering for a moment. "I suppose I'll just have to wait till I'm older I guess." He would only be turning fourteen in a few months, he had plenty of time.

"Indeed. Let us continue." Iroh said, taking a wide earth style stance.

The focus of earth style, at its core, was about resilience. Iroh claimed that the older schools of earth style had their students headbutt stone walls. They would do so until the wall cracked to show that they had greater strength of will than the wall. While Zuko _appreciated_ the metaphor, he felt that literally banging his head against a wall was foolish.

As a firebender Zuko's main focus was control. More than anything control was important, fire could be called nearly anywhere and at any time, but undirected, unfocused it was worse than useless, it was dangerous. Fire out of control could burn yourself, or those you were trying to save. Fire out of control cared nothing for honor or bushido. It simply consumed.

Fire burned.

In short, to understand earthbending despite its outward dissimilarity to fire was not so difficult for Zuko. It was a matter of will. Will was something Zuko knew he had, had in bushels. However, advancement in modern firebending meant bending more fire, simultaneously, and in smaller areas. More precision, more finesse, more speed, more agility. Like _Azula_.

Zuko wasn't quick, not like Azula.

Months passed as Zuko and Iroh learned about the stone. Physical exercise laced heavily with his uncle's witticisms and meta-physical annotations. Whenever Zuko would hit a block, struggle with a concept, Iroh would retreat back to well-tread paths and give another lecture on the nature of fire, to help Zuko regain some confidence.

"Firebending is not just about one or the other Zuko," Iroh said during one such lecture. "Firebending is about control _AND_ speed. But for most people learning speed is…" he waggled his eyebrows in humor, "quicker."

Zuko groaned.

"But since you still _insist_ that you are not fast enough we will approach it from the other direction; control. Strength of will, is something I believe you have confidence in?"

Zuko nodded.

"Someday nephew you will learn ignore what other people say you can't do and simply... _Do_ " Iroh said shaking his head sadly. "But in the meantime, while you are catching up to that idea, we will continue to work."

Iroh showed Zuko the technique for "dagger of fire." By rigidly controlling his bending Iroh could create a small blade, about the length of his palm, made entirely of flame. It was so focused that he could even put chips into the largest bolder he had blasted apart with lightning.

"The key is to hold on to the fire longer than you've been taught," Iroh said pacing back and forth as his nephew glared at his still flameless fist. "Normally a strike of fire simply creates the fire, bends it along the path of the strike and then is released. Quick and precise to preserve one's chi and stamina. For dagger of fire, you must create the fire and hold it in place, constantly feeding it your chi. Start by using palm of fire, as though you were trying to see in the dark."

It was exhausting. There was a reason you didn't hold fire in place very long and that's because its nature was to spread and consume. Fighting against nature was difficult and the best Zuko could manage after several hours was a weak candle flame projecting from his fist where the "dagger" should have been.

"Do not trouble yourself nephew. It will come in time," Iroh said patting him on the back.

Zuko wasn't concerned. Of course it would. All he had to do was keep working, that at least he was good at.

* * *

 **Late Summer, Year 6 of the reign of Fire-Lord Ozai**

"Waterbending? I thought you were sure that the avatar was still an air nomad? Why not air next?"

Many months had passed since they had come to the mountaintop. Everyday Zuko and Iroh would rise with the sun, as nearly everyone in the nation did, and proceed with training. It was long and arduous but the week before Iroh had declared that Zuko was "competent" in attacking and defending against earth style. He had disappeared into the city for the rest of the day and returned with more scrolls.

"For two reasons nephew," Iroh said warmly, "firstly, because it is a far more natural segway than to leap from earth to its natural opposite air. Second," at this Iroh gestured to himself, "I know very little about air-bending in style and form. You will have your homework and I will have mine." He gestured to the new pile of scrolls he had gathered from town.

"Where do you keep getting these Uncle?"

"You may have been banished my prince but I have not. I was once crown-prince of this land and I made a few connections in my time." He waggled his eyebrows. "The head librarian of the royal academy and I used to date," he said grinning broadly.

"Ugggh. Can you please not Uncle?"

"Beautiful women are like tea," Iroh continued loudly, ignoring Zuko's faux retching, "each of them wonderfully unique and fragrant. All you have to do is heat them up and get them-"

"Auugghh! Stop! In Akodo's name stop!"

Iroh looked nonplused. "Passion is an important aspect of firebending as well Zuko. Surely you're old enough to have _some_ romance in your soul?"

Zuko blushed, his thoughts turning briefly to the sarcastic, and very pretty, Shosuro Mai whom he'd always considered, at the very least, a good friend. He admired her for never backing down when Azula was in one of her rages, always defusing the situation with calm, almost bored detachment and extraordinarily dry wit. All that without being able to bend so much as a candle.

He had kissed her once, just after his gempukku, and while she had certainly kissed him back... it had been odd. She had looked at him, frowned, kissed him again, quite thoroughly, shrugged and then simply walked away without saying a word. She _was_ odd, but he liked that about her.

But they'd never said anything about it afterward, and Zuko certainly wasn't in a position to do anything about it now. Would she still even want to kiss? After his face had been destroyed? Thinking about it made him nervous in a way he rarely ever was.

"We should focus on our training Uncle," Zuko said attempting to banish the blush from his half functional face.

"Yes, yes very well. Tell me what you know of waterbending."

"They're primitive savages, still using row boats and sails. Somewhat pathetic that they have allowed us to control the seas where they should have an overwhelming advantage."

"I asked about _bending_ , not for a diatribe on their cultural inferiority," Iroh snapped.

"Oh. Well... nothing, I guess."

"As earthbending is about force of will and endurance and fire is about speed and control, water is about rhythm and adaptability."

"Rhythm? As in music?"

"Music is a large part of any culture nephew. But in this instance rhythm refers to the crashing of waves and the ebb and flow of the tides." Iroh began to sway in a familiar pattern. "Back and forth, gathering in strength until…" he made a gesture.

"Reminds me of the lightning kata," Zuko said musingly.

"That _was_ the lightning kata. Where did you think it came from?" Iroh said, cocking a bushy eyebrow.

"...Waterbenders can throw lightning?!"

"Don't be a fool nephew" Iroh snapped. "The lightning is ours, but where do you think we got the idea from? Just pulled it out of our hats? Maybe it had been in one of the appendices of Akodo's _LEADERSHIP_ and we just hadn't noticed?"

"So, we learned a highly advanced fire technique... from primitives?" Zuko said, sneering.

"What precisely do you think we have been doing these last months!" Iroh roared, all trace of good humor vanishing in a blink.

"I thought we were training to fight! So that I could go and capture the Avatar!" Zuko shot back leaping to his feet.

"What did you do this morning?" Iroh said coldly.

Despite it being a favorite tactic of his uncle's, Zuko was taken aback by the sudden change in topic.

"My... morning exercises Uncle."

"Yes. _Four hours_ of continuous bending preceded by your thousand cuts. It does not strike you as odd that you are not even tired?"

"No. Why should it?"

"Because a year ago you would have needed a day's recovery time for such a feat. Even during your gempukku you never bent for longer than a quarter hour continuously!"

"How do you know that!?"

"Because I was THERE, you insolent whelp!"

Zuko was taken aback for a moment. "You were?" he said quietly.

Iroh looked away, "Yes, though I am unsurprised you do not remember."

After a moment's silence, Iroh began again, more calmly this time. "My point nephew is that you are far, far stronger than you were before thanks in large part to the teachings of earth. Your stamina seems nearly limitless and I myself would be near to exhausted after your morning regimen. And were it not for the circumstances of birth I could very easily be considered an earthbending master." He laughed. "When setting your training regimen, do you remember how I kept adding things day after day? I just wanted to see at what point you would no longer be able to continue. At what point you would break. It seems that in that _I_ have been a fool." He began pacing back and forth, tone once again lecturing. "You must overcome your foolish prejudices and recognize that everyone has something to teach you. _Especially_ your enemies. _Understanding_ is the beginning of victory."

Zuko mused silently as his uncle paced back and forth lecturing.

"That being said, I grow very weary of listening to you disparage the benders of other elements. They too are Samurai! Not only are you directly benefiting from their methods but you have _never even met one!_ Hate the other nations if you must Zuko, but only a fool ignores strength. A fool who will soon be destroyed by the strength he refused to acknowledge." He stopped pacing and looked wistfully out at the setting sun. "I remember fighting Moto Chagatai at Jang Hui. The man would have killed your grandfather, probably destroyed the entire eastern fleet, if I hadn't spent _months_ learning everything I could about water style. If I could not have accepted that they were worthy of respect, that they had something worth knowing, I would not have come screaming out of the west, a Dragon, my mouth full of flame."

Zuko sat down quietly. "I… I will try Uncle."

Iroh covered his eyes sighing. "I suppose that will have to do." He took a deep breath and launched back into an explanation of waterbending.

At their heart all the styles of martial arts, all bending, had similarities at their core but the greatest difference between bending water and fire was that a waterbender, like an earthbender, had to have some of their element nearby. Because of that, they had to had to know how to adapt. To seize and hold water they had to match it, harmonize with it, flow _with_ it. This was in stark contrast to fire in which the bender had to set themselves _against_ their element, to fight against its nature, to _control_ it.

Fighting Iroh while he used Earth style forms was, as he'd described, like fighting a mountain. Water style, on the other hand, was like fighting against yourself. It didn't seem to matter what angle Zuko came from, Iroh's defense was always there to meet him and to use his own momentum to take him somewhere you didn't want to be. Usually with embarrassing results.

"Do waterbenders ever attack Uncle?" Zuko asked tauntingly, after several weeks of training. "Or do they, like you, just enjoy making people look foolish?" He said it with a grin, without malice in it.

"Oh, a little of both I believe," Iroh replied, never dropping his guard, taking his yellow eyes from Zuko, or stopping the slow rhythmic movements that made up his defense. "For myself, I have always enjoyed making people _taller_ than me look foolish."

Zuko _was_ taller now. He'd begun to grow much more rapidly than before, the product of teenage growth, plenty of exercise and "good clean mountain air" as his uncle put it. It was obvious to Iroh that the boy still had a way to go. Both his mother and father had both been tall, and Zuko's frame still had a lean ranginess that spoke of great future growth. He now stood a full hand and a half above his uncle who had begun complaining about this fact to no end. That and the fact that their food bill had almost doubled.

"Eats like a battalion of Earth peasants," Iroh would grumble to himself, lamenting his lack of money to buy rare teas.

"I have a question Uncle," Zuko said one evening during dinner.

Iroh just nodded, taking advantage of the boy's distraction to get what he considered his "fair" share of rice.

"Why is it that we can generate fire when none of the other elements can simply make theirs?"

"An excellent question nephew!" Iroh said, putting his now full bowl of rice down in front of him. "Why do you think?"

"I _have_ been giving it thought Uncle and I'm not sure. Maybe our chi is naturally flammable? Perhaps there is fire around us all the time and so it's impossible to be without?"

"You are very close nephew, but the answer is very simple. Do you know what it means to be fire-blooded as opposed to ice-blooded?"

"Lizards are ice-blooded I believe, they warm themselves with the sun and sleep at night while it's cold."

"Indeed! And we, humans, are flame-blooded. We heat our bodies with the food we eat." He patted his belly

"So, the fire comes from the inside?" Zuko

"The initial spark does, from there it uses…" Iroh raised his eyebrows, prompting Zuko.

"Anger," Zuko said flatly. "Anger, like fire, burns. It is the fuel that makes our fire burn stronger."

"Er… it IS a bit more complicated than that, it is _passion_ that burns nephew. Emotion itself. There are many sources of fuel," he paused for a moment considering. "Tell me the nature of Fire nephew."

"Fire burns, uncle," Zuko said, giving the answer every firebending child above the age of seven knew.

"Yes indeed, it _consumes_. What about the other elements?"

This was a more difficult question, not something Zuko had pondered overmuch.

"I will give you a hint," Iroh said genially, "what do the elements _do_ when we don't bend them?"

"Earth does nothing it just stays still." Zuko began. He paused to contemplate the next element. Iroh began taking thirds. "Water… flows, falls maybe? And I've no idea about air," he finished, with a hint of exasperation.

"Air is a bit esoteric, and I'm not sure I can fully explain it yet, so I'll let you off the hook for that one. But as to the others, you are quite right. The main difference is that fire, independent of the bender, seeks to grow. All you must do is take a spark from your own body's heat, power it with your chi, your passion, and control it from going where you don't want it with your will. This is also the reason that your own flames do not burn you when they are called into being by you. They are a part of you and have taken on your chi. We call flames still powered directly by your chi 'hard fire' and fire you have released 'soft fire.' Your dagger of fire is an excellent example of hard fire and one of the reasons it was named such." He paused and frowned down at the now bare table. "What happened to all the fish?"

"You ate all the rice Uncle, and I was still hungry," Zuko said putting his chopsticks down.

* * *

 **Winter Year 6 of the reign of Fire-Lord Ozai**

Before sleeping, Zuko had begun to meditate, per his uncle's request.

"You are at a delicate stage Zuko, your body is still growing, your emotions raging wild. Emotion is the source of our power, and so you must continue to learn control," Iroh had said solemnly.

Despite coming across as extremely patronizing, he wasn't wrong. Even Zuko had noticed that his temper had begun to lash out at odd times and with less provocation than it had previously. So, obeying his uncle's instructions, he endeavored to completely empty his mind for an hour before bed… with limited success. He would manage for a moment but then his mind would spin away, remembering some form or technique he felt he'd need to work on, or something amusing uncle had said earlier or, on a very bad day, with vague impressions of his father, flame at his fist coming down on Zuko's defenseless face. At first, he'd chuckle, or wince, and then clear his mind again. But it happened over and over again, and each time he grew more irritated, more frustrated, more _enraged_ until it seemed that the only real solution was to simply set himself aflame and let _that_ focus his mind.

He settled instead for a single candle. His eyes had been constantly drawn to the flame when he began this practice of meditation and he'd originally snuffed it out. But after a few weeks of complete frustration, he'd basically given up. He couldn't empty his mind completely, but he could focus on something. Why not fire?

The flame flickered.

Flame once released was soft fire and would never again be hard fire. It felt… different, to his bending senses. It was possible to continue to power soft flame with his chi, to bend it, but it would never be _his_ again. It would burn him a surely as his father's had. If he had lit the candle himself, with his bending, it was as though a piece of himself was lost, wasn't it?

The flame moved.

If you just let go and watched the flame it began to look like fire kata. Not a person doing the kata but just… the kata themselves. In one moment "strike of fire" the next "reckless abandon" into "spinning blades."

The flame beckoned.

It didn't seem right. If he was the source of the fire surely it _was_ his? He reached out with his bending...

The flame spun.

It felt like flying a kite during the typhoon season. Whipping back and forth, impossible to control. He began to sweat, just being in contact with such a little flame was exhausting, and he had already had a full day of training…

The flame danced.

It _danced_. It had a rhythm to it. Just like water style. Zuko began to sway slightly, still sitting cross-legged, trying to match the flame. It had seemed erratic at first… but there was a pattern. Now if he just reached out…

The flame turned red.

Zuko, startled, released his bending and the flame returned to a standard orange.

 _What in the Sun's name was that?_ he thought. _Did I just imagine it?_

He didn't think so, the candle had become hard flame again, _his_ flame, and _red_ besides. Despite being bone weary he started again, from the beginning. It took hours to achieve the same state again but he _was_ successful for a few moments, his face lit in a red glow like a metalworker's forge. He nearly collapsed in exhaustion afterward, but he was satisfied. It could be _done!_ And he would get better, all it would take was hard-work and practice.

That at least he was good at.

* * *

He hadn't told his uncle.

It was interesting knowing something the old man didn't. A part of him, the part that often spoke in his father's voice, whispered that he should _never_ tell Iroh. It would be a secret weapon that only _he_ knew about. He considered it, but on the whole, he was far too excited about his discovery for that. Besides Uncle never held back anything…

 _Didn't he?_ Asked his father's voice. _How would you know?_

No. Iroh had shown him whatever he asked, and sometimes things he didn't, like lightning. He just made sure Zuko understood the dangers and wasn't going to do anything foolish. Obviously, he had a reason, the left side of Zuko's face showed that he was capable of _great_ foolishness.

But after a few weeks of nightly practice, he could seize hold of a candle flame and bend it as though it was hard fire, sending it dancing around his arms, the ruby red light flickering and dancing. He had been surprised to discover that he could do the same to fire that _hadn't_ been originally bent by him. It didn't matter if he lit it with a sparkrock, his bending or even, and this truly shocked him, if it had been lit by his _uncle's_ bending. Soft fire was soft fire, it belonged to no one. If he had known that before would he have even tried?

"Uncle, I have a question."

"No. You may not have another portion. You've already had _thirds!_ "

"Not about the food! About bending," Zuko said with consternation.

"Oh, well then," Iroh said munching away at his kabob, "ask away."

"About soft fire. Is it really not possible to reassert control over it?"

"No," said Iroh flatly.

"But surely it…"

"Nephew, you already have one impossible task to achieve, you don't need another," Iroh said gently and not a little patronizingly.

"So, you believe finding the Avatar is impossible then?" Zuko said his anger coming to the surface.

"Those were _your_ words nephew, not mine. But I think you've got enough to focus on without wasting time and energy on something that is flatly impossible. Might as well try and bend on the day of Black Sun."

"Weren't _you_ the one that told to stop worrying about what people say you can or can't do and just DO?" Zuko spat acidly.

"You haven't been doing your meditations have you nephew?" Iroh said, narrowing his eyes. "I told you your emotions would begin to rage out of control. Did you just think to get an extra hour of sleep, neglecting my instructions?"

So angry was Zuko, that he couldn't think of a reply. He just dropped to his meditation pose and began focusing on the flame under his uncle's teapot.

"What are you do-?" began Iroh

The flame turned red.

Zuko shoved his hand in the flame, gathering a handful, and squeezing it in his palm into a dagger of fire, now about the length of his wakizashi.

Iroh's eyes nearly fell out of his head. "That's… how... That's the most amazing thing I've ever SEEN!" he shouted. His face a moment ago pale in shock flooded with color. "Over three _hundred_ generations of Akodos and _my_ nephew…!" He tackled Zuko in a hug. Zuko banished the flame quickly so he wouldn't burn him.

"So… you're not angry?" It slipped out. Zuko immediately regretted it. It made him sound pathetic.

"Angry? Why should I be? I've never been more proud!" Iroh began to laugh, a deep laugh, nearly maniacal, that was seen by many as the hallmark of the ruling Akodo family. Outside the Fire-Nation, those who had the misfortune to hear it rarely had the chance to speak of it later to others. Those who did could only find the word "villainous" as an accurate descriptor.

Zuko began to laugh as well, his voice didn't crack once.

* * *

 **Spring, Year 7 of the reign of Fire-Lord Ozai**

"I don't understand," Iroh said, squinting at a candle in the middle of their hut.

"It's just like water style uncle, you have to listen to the flame, match its movements." Zuko was just outside, speaking through the open window, finishing his second iteration of the thousand cuts, this time with a bar of crimson fire in his hands, now slightly over two feet long. "At first it will feel like hanging onto a rope pulled by a rampaging rhino-lizard, but when you match it, it's much easier. Like an ill-tempered turtle-duck."

"But I don't feel anything," Iroh said tiredly.

"Nothing?" Zuko stopped and poked his head in.

"Nothing."

The two of them had been hard at work over the last few weeks, exploring the potential of Zuko's new technique, discovering its weaknesses. For the most part, it took a great deal of concentration and time to "seize" the flame. The amount of time it took Zuko was rapidly diminishing as he practiced it, but as of yet, he was not fast enough to seize an opponent's flame in a combat situation. The process was also exhausting to maintain, which was why Zuko had added a _second_ series of thousand cuts to his repertoire; all with a dagger, now a short sword, of red flame instead of steel. His stamina, already impressive, advanced by leaps and bounds.

"Maybe you should try after the sun goes down?" Zuko said, concern in his voice. "That's when I did it the first time." Zuko was certain that if his uncle could learn how to do it then _no_ mystery would be left unrevealed.

"Nephew, if you think I have been sleeping any more than necessary these last weeks you are kidding yourself."

Iroh did look a bit haggard, he might have even lost some weight.

"This is the most exciting thing to happen to me since I discovered 'dragon's breath' and the most exciting thing to happen to firebending since Bayushi discovered 'flight of fire.'"

"Both of which you have neglected to teach me," Zuko said wryly.

Iroh chuckled. "I will be happy to teach you 'dragon's breath,' but not even I know the secrets of 'flight of fire.' The Scorpion dojo holds its secrets very close. I understand that it requires a great deal of bending precision and control, mostly in the feet, but I've always been more of an 'earthy' person." He laughed. "I believe Sozin could use it, at least when his comet was in range." He turned back to the candle flame, scowling. "I will persevere, but I feel nothing like you describe." He sighed. "I may have to accept it as an innate power and move on."

"Innate?"

"Yes, there are benders who have interesting variational abilities, which cannot be taught. I once fought an Earth Samurai at Shiro Kuni who could bend _lava_. Absolutely terrifying." He grinned in remembrance of an excellent fight.

"How did you defeat him, uncle?"

"I let him bend," Iroh said smiling wickedly.

"What?"

"He tore up the battlefield with lava, but once it _was_ lava none of his compatriots could bend at all. He essentially removed the rest of his battalion as a useful fighting force, and we overwhelmed them with arrows." He turned to look at Zuko. "No man in an army fights alone Zuko, consideration for your fellows and their abilities should be forefront in a commander's mind."

"You often speak as though you expect me to lead men in battle uncle, I very much doubt that will happen," Zuko said ruefully.

"Oh? You expect this war to be won without your help do you? I never knew you for someone to shirk his duty," Iroh said shaking his head in mock sadness.

"I am banished uncle," Zuko said grimly, returning to his stance, bar of red fire still pulsing in his hands. "I do not anticipate being allowed to command his majesty's troops anytime soon."

Iroh chuckled.

* * *

 **High Summer, Year 7 of the reign of Fire-Lord Ozai**

Someone was coming.

Zuko had thought he'd been imagining things, but for some time now he'd felt that he could, almost, sense benders and bending being done. He had told himself it was just wishful thinking, largely in part because the only person he saw was his uncle, and because the telling red shadows always seemed to appear, flickering and ghostly, in his dead eye. He'd given up on the eye, he had told himself over and over, a well-deserved punishment for speaking out of turn, his dishonor made manifest. But some part of himself, the part he saw as weak and pathetic, still clung to hope.

But someone _was_ coming.

He knew it somehow, and it wasn't his Uncle. He dropped his sword of flame, now almost long enough to be called a sword in truth. Uncle had been adamant that he should keep his ability, if not secret then at least under-wraps, at least until they both understood it better.

A part of him wanted to run. Not a retreat, but a tactical withdrawal to a better vantage point, where he could do a threat assessment undetected. But he decided against it. Who would come here and offer him harm? If sought violence he was more than prepared to give it to them, he knew every inch of this mountainside and would crush any enemy who dared to invade his domain.

But it wasn't an enemy at all. His eye widened as a young woman with yellow eyes the same shade as his own strolled idly over the rise, and stopped, a single eyebrow raised, a familiar smirk on her face.

"Azula!" he roared, sweeping down on her grabbing her up in a hug.

"Ugggh. Release me you lout!" she said, punching him in the ribs nearly half a dozen times in the space of a second.

Zuko ignored the punches. She couldn't have been hitting him seriously or he'd have felt them. He held her up, hands under her armpits, like a puppy.

"What are you doing here?" he grinned happily. "I barely recognized you you've grown so much taller!"

She frowned at him. "Down," she commanded, pointing as she spoke, never breaking eye contact. He obliged her, still grinning.

" _I've_ grown taller? What about you? You must be almost as tall as father now," she said smoothing her robes where Zuko had wrinkled them.

Zuko looked down at himself. "Do you really think so? I guess I hadn't noticed."

Azula shook her head. "Of course you didn't dum-dum. As for what I'm doing here," she took a moment to take in the hut that they lived in, sneering somewhat disdainfully, "should I need a reason to visit my brother on his birthday?"

Zuko blinked. "That's today?"

"Yes dummy," she said rolling her eyes. "The solstice was eight days ago. You never pay enough attention."

"But that means…" Zuko frowned. "Azula you shouldn't waste your time here with me. Your gempukku should be any day now. Even you should study, or at the very least hold yourself in readiness."

"It was _yesterday_ actually," she drawled in a bored tone.

Zuko roared with laughter, his voice far deeper than it had been when he'd left the palace, startling her out of her indifferent facade.

"Of course, it was! You _would_ be tested early." He placed a fist in one palm and bowed over it. "May I offer you my sincere congratulations Akodo Azula," he said formally.

"I thank you in kind Akodo Zuko," she replied, smirking, but no less formally. "Yes, father said it was the fastest he'd ever seen anyone complete the trials. Even the shugenja seemed surprised."

"Father… came to your gempukku?" Zuko asked quietly.

"Of course, he did, we've been training together for months. You know how invested he gets in his personal projects."

"That sounds like a great honor," Zuko replied, concealing a bit of envy. "I imagine... father is still very angry with me."

"Yes," Azula said, but immediately softened her tone. "He refuses to speak of you, and no one is foolish enough to speak of you in front of him." She brightened. "But I suppose that works a bit in your favor. If he knew you were up here in sight of the city he might become very cross. And he'd certainly never allow you to have… this." She pulled a sealed roll of parchment out from behind her belt.

"What's that?" Zuko said frowning.

"You mean you don't know? Uncle hasn't told you?"

"I was saving it as a surprise," Iroh said from behind them, frowning.

Azula recovered from her momentary surprise rapidly. "Uncle! So nice to see you. I just came up here to wish my brother a happy birthday."

"With a message scroll intended for my hand alone?" Iroh said cocking an eyebrow.

Zuko chuckled. "I am unsurprised. Ever since she learned to read she has delighted in reading other people's mail. I think the only time I ever saw father angry with her was when he caught her with war-plans intended for grandfather. You were five I believe."

She stuck her tongue out at him, Zuko ruffled her hair.

"And you never thought to visit your brother before this? Never to even ask if he had recovered?"

Zuko responded for her hotly. "She was busy with gempukku training Uncle! Besides I would not expect her to taint herself by associating with me." He grinned. "But we should be celebrating! My birthday AND my sister's successful gempukku."

"May I offer you my sincere congratulations Akodo Azula," Iroh said formally.

"I thank you in kind Akodo Iroh," she said rolling her eyes. "If I keep bowing like this I will develop a crick in my back."

"Will you stay for dinner sister?"

"No, I think not, father will be suspicious if I do not return soon," she said turning to leave. "Happy birthday Zuzu. And _do_ remember to write me after you go."

"What do you think she meant by that?" Zuko said after she had left.

* * *

"A commission," Zuko said flatly staring at the still sealed scroll on the table between them.

"Yes indeed nephew. I spoke to a few friends of mine at the war college and we all thought it would make things simpler," Iroh said pouring them some tea.

"How is it possible? Surely my father…"

"A general has great discretion in the armies of the Fire-Lord. He can promote and demote almost at will. The Fire-Lord himself need not concern himself with trivial matters."

"But won't I be subject to military authority? How can I seek out the Avatar and train if I am shackled with the responsibilities of leadership? I'll have to report to the front, follow orders and spend my life fighting earth peasants."

"Ah but that is the best part, and why this will make things simpler. For many years, the royal family has sent its sons and daughters off to fight in the wars. But they are still royals and cannot be commanded like regular soldiers, so they are given a unique commission such as this. Just as _I_ was when I was your age. You will be expected to behave appropriately and respectfully of course, but you cannot be ordered about by your superior officers. You cannot countermand their orders, but you will have authority over those beneath you. In essence, you operate _alongside_ the normal military structure."

"And how is that supposed to help?"

"You will have the opportunity to draw armor and supplies from army and navy quartermasters. You can obtain passage on military vessels. There are any number of things you can do. Also," he smiled and stroked his beard, "you will be given a salary, which will help to supplement my poor pension."

"You really dislike buying the cheap green tea, don't you?"

"This is barely green water let alone TEA!" Iroh returned heatedly. He grew somber again. "As to training, I fear that in that regard I have failed you."

"Surely not uncle."

"Yes, I'm surprised too. But I have failed to truly grasp the essence of air style. These scrolls," he indicated the small pile, that Zuko now noticed we neatly rolled up ready for transport. "Are just fragments, superstitions and idle speculation. Unsurprising given our history with the Air-Nomads. We will have to go to the source. Besides!" He slammed his empty teacup down on the table, "you don't expect to catch and Avatar sitting here on a mountainside, do you?"

"Am I ready though?"

"I have found nephew that if you wait till you are ready, you will find that you never will be." He tossed the commissioning papers into Zuko's lap. "Make ready, we leave for the port of Ginasutra tomorrow."

 **A/N: A word on characterization.**

 **You may have noticed over these last two chapters that most of these characters are a bit OOC. This is both intentional and possibly unintentional.**

 **Unintentionally speaking I cannot claim to be a particularly gifted writer, I'm doing my best to try and keep the characters to one or two main "traits" that they have, but otherwise, it's just me, a hobbyist, doing the best I can. I apologize for that.**

 **Intentionally speaking I made the conscious choice (knowing again that I am NOT Tolkien, GRR Martin, or Stephen King) to sort of _normalize_ the characters. Make them less caricatures. Zuko is angry and persistent but not irrationally so. Azula is a bit of a bitch, but she is still a 13-year-old girl and actually DOES care about her brother. Iroh… ok, so I have many interesting thoughts on Iroh.**

 **I think Iroh is going on his OWN journey of self-discovery over the course of this story and the series at large. He wasn't _always_ the kooky tea loving guru we all know and love from the show and our own headcanons. I cite "the storm" where we see a flashback to Iroh in command of the army at Ba Sing Se. He makes a joke in a letter to his young niece and nephew about burning the city to the ground. And they _laugh._ Even Ursa laughs. This said to me that the Fire-Nation has a culture of violence. Iroh would not be immune to that, being raised by Fire-Lord Azulon, son of genocidal asshat Sozin. I want to touch on Iroh's character arc here as it isn't something I've covered in the main body of work.**

 **In his youth Iroh is taught to be "the perfect prince" but it costs him his son. He comes home and latches on to Zuko as a bit of a surrogate. He is tired of war but that does not mean he falls out of old habits. He is hard on Zuko. Not OZAI levels of harshness but still, this is the way his family has always been, and he is just a product of that environment. It is only now in this chapter and over the rest of the story that he really considers the implications of what he is teaching Zuko. He teaches him about other countries and is angered to hear them disparaged. Eventually, he learns about Air-Nomad philosophy and that, more than anything else, begins to change him as he tries to understand it. Over the course of the series he travels and learns all while trying to teach Zuko.**

 **There is no better way to learn something than by teaching it.**

 **But that's just my opinion. YMMV.**

 **Another MAJOR difference as you've no doubt noticed by now is Zuko and Azula's relationship. One of the most important parts of L5R is a samurai's relationship to their family. Family is everything and so instead of being perpetually bitter about his sister's amazing ability, Zuko sees it as something that reflects well upon family, and thus, himself.**

 **Make no mistake, Azula is still a bit of a sadist, but Zuko really has no perspective on that. That is simply the way things _are_ in his family. He believes his sister cares for him, and in her own way, I believe she does. This will become more apparent a LONG time from now in book 3. Look forward to it! **

**Thanks for reading! Your comments and kudos and even you simple _hits/views_ are truly exciting. You keep it up!**

 **NEXT WEEK on a very special "Avatar: The Last Dragon"...  
Iroh drinks tea! Zuko buys a mask, discovers a secret, saves a life and takes one too!**

 **TUNE IN. Same Zuko time, Same Zuko channel!**

 **Original post date: 28 APR 2018**


	3. Smoke

**A/N: The following is rated V, for Violence**

 **Reader discretion is advised**

* * *

Chapter 3 "Smoke"

* * *

 **High Summer, Year 7 of the reign of Fire-Lord Ozai**

They headed to Ginasutra on the southern coast.

Ginasutra was the largest port on the southern coastline of the Fire-Nation. Here some of the finest ships were made, and much of the trade from the colonies and the spice islands flowed northward off the wharves, on to carts or the new train, and onward to the capital. The harborage directly under Otosan Uchi was reserved for fishing and pleasure boating, with commerce and war being deemed too crass to pass the Gates of Azulon and enter the Bay of Flames. Ginasutra also had a naval headquarters where Zuko could pick up his issued equipment and receive his first month's pay. Something that, his Uncle at least, was very excited about.

"Some of the finest teas in the world are bought and sold in the market there. Half of the time the fools don't even know what they are selling!" Iroh cackled as they topped the rise and saw the city for the first time.

"Hmmm," Zuko said, his mind elsewhere.

The Governor of Ginasutra was Shosuro Ukano. _Mai's_ father.

During the few days of walking, riding the train, and musing, Zuko had come up with a plan. After he'd received his equipment, including a not too shabby set of light armor with his new lieutenant's rank enameled on the collar, he took his pay, (a single koku) and set off into the city, to "take a walk."

The streets and stones of the city were a chalky grey color, so after he made his way through the crowds, and found a merchant that would actually take money from a samurai, he bought a set of rough woolen clothes in the same color. On a whim, he also bought a plain white mask from a festival cart in the lower district. The cart owner had tried to sell him a gaudy blue demon mask, but he hadn't much liked the look of it. Simple and solid suited him better. The off-white mask looked like a sleeping ghost, the eye slits flat and wide, the mouth a simple straight line. It allowed him to see without showing his rather distinctive yellow eye and fit snuggly despite his warrior's topknot.

That night he presented his uncle with a fine jasmine tea he'd bought with some of his remaining currency. Iroh had been right, jasmine _was_ expensive. But he had been so overjoyed with his gift he didn't even notice when Zuko slipped out his bedroom window, clad in gray, mask in place.

He would sneak into Mai's house he'd decided. Tap her on the forehead as though they were still playing the game. Then they could… talk, figure out exactly where they stood with one another before Zuko left. Spirits alone knew when they would see one another again.

And this way there was no chance he'd be turned away at the gate and humiliated.

The Governor's mansion was large, modestly opulent, and well-guarded. Or at least Zuko had _thought_ it was well guarded. The fools might as well have been painted screens for all they kept Zuko out. The stealth he'd learned from their childhood game served him surprisingly well in infiltration it seemed. That coupled with the fact that he could almost _sense_ any firebenders, or the torches they carried, before they came upon him made the mission almost child's play.

Finally, after creeping along the outside of the building, he arrived at Mai's room. She had described it to him once as "the dullest view of the sea in the entire Fire-Nation," in that dry tone she always had. There was really only one window of the mansion really matched that description, and quiet as the wind he slipped inside it and quickly rolled behind a changing screen. He listened for a moment and was rewarded by a sound coming from the bed.

 _Oh, Ash!_ Zuko thought, rather belatedly, _what if she's undressed!_ Kicking himself for not thinking of this he listened and heard heavy breathing followed by… was that a whimper? He peaked his head around the screen and was confronted by a sight that had never been in his wildest imaginings.

It was Ty Lee, and she was naked.

 _What in the Sun's name is she…_ his eye dropped lower and found Mai, also naked, engaged in some activity near Ty Lee's…

 _OH SHIT!_

He immediately ducked his head back around the screen, his masked face flushing more heavily than he'd thought was physically possible. He must have made too much noise because the panting stopped.

"Someone's here." Came Mai's voice, followed by the sound of steel being unsheathed.

 _Where in the flame was she hiding that?!_ a part of Zuko's brain wondered. Another, less helpful part came back with a few answers, which made his face heat even further. A knife flew through the screen, a bare inch from his head, and embedded itself in the wall.

"Call the guards," whispered Ty Lee.

"And tell them what exactly?" snarled Mai.

"Hello? Zuko here," Zuko said stupidly, ripping off his mask and rising to his feet.

 _What in the Sun's name are you doing?!_ he roared at himself. _"Zuko here?"_ _you really are an idiot._

He emerged from the screen his eye _very carefully_ looking anywhere but at the two girls. "Uhhhh… Hi?" he said. "So... I was… in the neighborhood, and I thought… that… I… uhhh."

"Zuko!" Ty Lee squealed, as she, still very naked, nearly tackled him in excitement.

"Ahhh! Ty! You're naked…" Zuko yelped, his eye now clamped shut. Several parts of him reported that she did, in fact, feel rather nice.

 _STOP THINKING!_ he yelled at himself.

Mai, at least, had had the decency to throw a robe around herself and to also, he noted belatedly, to grab a handful of throwing knives.

"Ty, go put on some clothes and go back to the guest room. The _Prince_ and I need to talk." Mai said calmly.

"Ooooh, you're in trouble now Zuko, that's her _angry_ voice," Ty Lee said giggling as she pulled on a loose pair of pants. As she left the room she poked her head back in "You've grown so tall!" she giggled winking at him.

Zuko and Mai stared at each other, the atmosphere of the room dropping to sub-zero temperatures.

"What do you want, Zuko?" Mai said after a moment, her voice flat and uninflected.

"I just… came by to say hello. I…" This was not going as planned.

"That's not what I meant and you _know_ it. What do you want?"

Zuko didn't at first. _She thinks you intend to blackmail her, it's what she'd do,_ the voice of his father whispered in his mind. _She's a Scorpion, their way is guile and subterfuge. The thought that you would never do that to her never even entered her mind._

"I'm leaving the Fire-Nation soon," he began, mind inventing wildly, "I… need eyes and ears back home to… keep me apprised of things. You, and Ty, will write me at least once a month. Letters directed through the Naval headquarters here in town will find me. Write them as though they were friendly letters so that no one will suspect." He nodded. Sounded pretty convincing.

"That's all?"

"That's all."

Mai sighed, relaxing slightly "You are really bad at this aren't you Zuko?"

"I'm not a Scorpion, Mai."

"But you _are_ an Akodo. With a sister like yours you'd better _get_ good."

"I don't need to spy on my own sister," Zuko said irritably,

"Well, she certainly spies on you," Mai fired back. Sighing again she sat on her bed "I _am_ sorry Zuko. You shouldn't have had to find this way."

"You're sorry? I'm the one who snuck in here without thinking, like an idiot." He paused. "Why should I have _had_ to find out?"

"Well, I figured once we were married even you would put it together."

"Once we were… WHAT?!"

"You didn't know?" She shook her head. "Of course you didn't, you never paid attention to that sort of thing. Your father and mine had been arranging it for years, mother nearly had a heart attack when you were banished."

"Ash and bone, Mai. If you didn't want to marry me you could have said something. I would have put a stop to it."

"Oh, I wouldn't mind being married to you, being a princess of the Fire-Nation would make up for a lot of things. I'm already used to living a lie Zuko."

"I don't…"

"I'm gay Zuko. I don't like boys, I like girls."

"Huh. I guess... that's... bad," Zuko inflected his voice to make it a question.

"You really _are_ an idiot. My parents would disown me. Father has always been _traditional_ , he would probably ask your father to put me to death."

"Does Azula…?"

"Sun's fire Zuko, of course not! She already bosses me around like I'm her least favorite pet, can you imagine if she knew about this?" She narrowed her eyes. "Wait a minute, if I hadn't said anything, you wouldn't have even known to blackmail me, would you?"

"Well I've got to now, don't I? Dead drops and 'in case of assassination' letters and the whole thing. Otherwise, you'll think I don't respect you!" He grinned in consternation, still lying his teeth off.

Mai made a disgusted sound at him. "Just be careful about it, I've already got enough to worry about with Ty. You'd think she wasn't a Scorpion the way she goes on, not a care in the world." Despite her words, Mai smiled gently.

"Oooh. I heard my name, nothing but good things I hope?" Ty Lee sang as she flounced back in the room plopping down in Mai's lap.

"You see what I have to deal with," Mai said, gesturing at her girlfriend.

* * *

"Did you have a pleasant stroll nephew?" Iroh asked as he emerged from his room.

 _Why bother denying it,_ Zuko thought. "Yes Uncle, I did."

"Good, because we leave tomorrow, before the sun. There is a ship heading west that will take us to a village in Chameleon Bay, from there we'll take a smaller ship to the eastern air temple."

Zuko nodded solemnly. "So, it begins."

* * *

 **Late Summer Year 7 of the reign of Fire-Lord Ozai**

"Sun's flames, this is dull," Zuko sighed a few weeks later.

"I fail to see how this is much different from what we have been doing for the last year," Iroh said sipping his tea, contemplating the portable Pai Sho set he had purchased.

"That is my _point_ Uncle!" Zuko said, anger rising.

"You could go back above deck, practice your bending again."

"The Captain asked me not to 'distract' his men from their duties. Besides if I keep practicing in public people are going to start asking why my flames are always red."

"Still no luck in getting them to look normal?" Iroh asked interestedly.

Off and on the week before and continuously now, all of Zuko's bent flames had turned the cherry red of his seized flames. He was also having more trouble letting go of fire now once it had been bent as well. He had to almost consciously turn off the flow of chi, something he'd never had to do before.

"Well you _are_ a prince, royalty is supposed to have its eccentricities. I've heard rumors that your sister'sflames are perpetually blue now," Iroh said, waving Zuko's concerns away.

"Still, I am restless uncle. I knew not to expect dramatic changes overnight but, leaving the Fire-Nation, sailing across the sea, I expected... _something."_

"You are a soldier now, my prince. Most of our time is spent waiting. 'Two hours marching, six hours waiting, twelve minutes of blood.'" Iroh quoted. He gestured at the cushion across from him. "Come play Pai Sho. It is good to fill the time."

"I still prefer Go."

"Fine. One game of Go for every… _five_ of Pai Sho."

"Three of Go to five of Pai Sho, not a Zeni more."

"We have a bargain!" cried Iroh laughing.

* * *

 **Autumn, Year 7 of the reign of Fire-Lord Ozai**

The village was surrounded.

Doromuri was at the southeastern end of Chameleon Bay. It was purported to produce an excellent brand of sake which, when paired with elephant-koi steak, was touted as the finest meal in all of the Earth-Kingdom. It was also supposed to be a safe port, guarded and garrisoned, protecting against attacks up the bay towards Shiro Yoritomo, an Earth-Kingdom fortress that had been captured by the Fire Nation a little less than a decade ago. Zuko and Iroh were supposed to catch a ride on a smaller cutter from there. South to the Eastern Air Temple.

Doromuri was _not_ supposed to be under siege by a battalion of Earth-Kingdom troops.

"My advice _highness_ is to simply stay on the ship until we reach Shiro Yoritomo," Lt. Commander Bayushi Zhao said with a sneer.

"Lieutenant will do," Zuko said, for the umpteenth time, as he gazed at the besieging army through a spyglass.

He had found the captain of the ship to be simultaneously patronizing and scornful for the entire duration of the voyage. All his attempts at polite civility, carefully coached by his uncle the former general, had been rebuffed, not quite insultingly, but as close to it as a man like Zhao dared. The only way Zuko managed to keep his temper under control was by speaking to the man as little as possible.

"Surely your ship can provide some support Captain," Iroh said, stroking his beard worriedly. "If this port falls those whole of Chameleon Bay will be at risk."

"My orders are to put in at Shiro Yoritomo, General. _I_ am not in the habit of being _disloyal_ to the Fire-Lord," Zhao said coldly, throwing another barb at Zuko.

"I happen to know that a ship's captain is allowed a great amount of latitude in the interpretation of his orders," Iroh said, his voice beginning to harden.

"And _I_ know that a backwater like Doromuri is garrisoned by the dregs of the teapot," Zhao said, sneering out at the village. "Company sized and probably not a bender among them."

"Are our belongings packed uncle?" Zuko asked. Iroh nodded. "We will require a rowboat Commander."

"I don't take orders from you!" Zhao snapped.

"It wasn't an order, it was a request," Zuko replied flatly, his tone indicating that a request from him was as good as any order.

They stared at each other, Zhao openly snarling, Zuko's face hard and unyielding. Zuko had noticed that the man always stared at his scar, and then stopped when he caught himself doing it. It seemed to unsettle him. So Zuko turned his face, oh so slightly, to the right and leaned in a bit, giving him a good look.

A good look at the price of disrespect.

"A rowboat. Commander." Clipped authoritative tones.

Zhao broke the staring match first.

"Engine to half power! Make ready the longboat!" he shouted, turning away, fuming.

"That was well-done nephew," Iroh whispered after he'd left.

"He's lucky I didn't cut him down where he stood, cowardly ashhole."

"As well you didn't try, he was one of Admiral Jeong-Jeong students. He might be a bit more dangerous than you think."

"Jeong-Jeong? The deserter? Sun's name, how did he end up commanding a boat?"

"A boat two sizes too small for a man with enough time in service to be two ranks higher?"

"And _that's_ why he's so irritable," Zuko mused.

"Indeed."

"...Still a cowardly pile of ash."

"Oh yes, no doubt."

Not only did Zhao give them a rowboat, he gave them a rower too. The boy couldn't have been more than ten and was terrified, whether, of Zuko, the captain, or the impending death sentence that was the trip ashore was unclear. Iroh spent the first leg of the trip trying to keep the boy calm enough to row straight. Zuko kept his eye on the enemy forces, any minute now they would see him. Any… minute…

Rocks began flying at the small boat as they approached the halfway point.

"No turning back now!" laughed Iroh.

The rower began crying.

"The faster you row the faster we get to safety," Zuko roared.

"Easy young man, move aside," Iroh commanded calmly as he took up the oars.

The rocks didn't even come close to the skiff until they were much closer, splashing around them creating waves that rocked the little boat severely.

One was finally on target. Zuko, timing it as well as he could on the rocking boat, struck it with his sword of fire, not quite cutting it in two. But it was enough to knock the head-sized rock out of the way. As they got closer, the boulders grew in size and accuracy, the volleys denser. Zuko ran from one end of the little ship to the other, intercepting the stones with his blade, and sometimes his body as little bits of gravel began to accumulate in the bottom of the boat. Iroh cheered when small gouts of flame from the village began to interdict some of the rocks. They were _almost_ to a safe distance when a boulder almost as big as the rowboat itself flew at them.

 _That will be their commander's_ , mused the portion of Zuko's brain that wasn't engaged in panicking.

"Abandon ship!" screamed the boy, suiting his own words rapidly.

Iroh grabbed the luggage closest to him, which contained his teapot, and rolled out of the boat.

 _Thank the Sun mother made me learn to swim,_ thought Zuko, as he threw himself into the water.

Apparently, the _rower's_ mother had neglected that particular duty however. The boy thrashed and flailed in the water like a man in the throes of a seizure. Zuko managed to grab him in a near chokehold with one arm and began to frantically pull his way upward.

Back in Ginasutra when he'd received his gear and base pay, the quartermaster had kindly included a book called " _A Sailor's Primer."_ It might as well have been called _"A Foolish-Prince-Who-Knows-Nothing-about-Life-at-Sea-and-Probably-Won't-Last-a-Week's Primer"_ but, for lack anything better to do, Zuko had read the book, cover to cover. This is why all his equipment was either secured about his person or sealed in leather wet bags in his luggage. He certainly hadn't even considered that wearing his armor was an almost certain death sentence in the event of going overboard until the book had mentioned it. His biggest concern now was the damage the salt water would do to his daisho. Which was why, following the primer's advice, he always carried a small sealed maintenance kit with him.

The primer also had included a very basic instruction on resuscitation. Which is why the _boy_ survived.

After Zuko and Iroh had hauled themselves up on the beach, Iroh cradling his teapot, Zuko carrying the boy, and they'd managed to get him breathing again Zuko had gone back in the water to find the rest of his gear. Its marking float bobbing along back out where the skiff had capsized. No earth chased him, the enemy having either given them up for dead or simply not seeing him.

The boy was still coughing when he dragged his bag onto the beach. Zuko plopped down and with hurried care began disassembling and cleaning his daisho.

"You have a name boy?" Zuko growled.

"P-p-ping your majesty. Kaiu Ping" the boy squeaked.

Zuko stopped. "Kaiu?" That was an Earth-Kingdom surname.

"From the colonies, I'd wager," said Iroh performing the same ritual on his daisho… and his tea set

"Y-y-es majesties," said Ping still shivering.

"Firstly, Ping the only 'majesty' you have is the Fire-Lord," Zuko said still focusing on his task "I am a Prince, the correct title is 'Highness.'"

"Yes, Highn-"

"However!" Zuko interrupted loudly "You will call me 'Sir' or 'Lieutenant.' The old mad-man over there cleaning a teapot is General Iroh or Akodo-sensei." He looked up, grinning savagely at the boy. "You work for _me_ now Ping, and my first order to you is…" he drew a deep breath "LEARN HOW TO FLAMING SWIM!" he roared.

"YES, SIR!" Ping cried, now _more_ terrified than he been at the start of the boat ride

* * *

The situation was bad.

Zuko found himself regretfully agreeing with Zhao, these _were_ the dregs at the bottom of the teapot. The only bender aside from himself and his uncle was the company commander who bore the uninspiring name of Atsui. He was short, plump and immediately placed Zuko in charge of the garrison, citing his "exalted" rank as justification. Only the fact that he might need another bender, along with pacifying advice from his uncle, kept Zuko from executing him for cowardice immediately. The rest of the unit was poorly dressed and poorly equipped, looking more like scruffy ronin than the Ji-Samurai they were supposed to be.

"These are Fire-Nation troops?" Zuko asked his uncle, bewildered after the first day.

"Indeed. The war has dragged on a long time Zuko. More money is always needed for weapons and the ships that comprise the main forces. Smaller garrisons like these… can be neglected."

"I won't ask you to take over for me uncle, but I crave whatever guidance the Dragon of the West can give," Zuko said, bowing as deeply as he could.

"The Dragon of the West is _retired_ nephew," Iroh began harshly, "…but your _sensei_ has a duty to his student," he finished with a smile.

Whoever it was that had taken the town originally had been smart at least. The outer wall had been fortified with solid oak planks as an outer layer that prevented the earthbenders from simply tearing them down. It didn't prevent them from throwing rocks, but for the most part, the wood was thick enough stop them. Also, fortunately, the soil in the area was not as solid as it was in the central part of the Earth-Kingdom, so the benders couldn't simply create a giant ramp of stone and overrun the walls. All in all, it would have been a stalemate, had the numbers not been so lopsided.

"Morale is low, the enemy is many, resources are minimal. What advice would Akodo give in this situation?" Iroh asked.

"Don't have a battle," Zuko said.

"Indeed. Fight on your terms."

"Ping!" Zuko roared.

"Yes sir!" squeaked Ping who was, at his uncle's insistence, trying to learn to make tea properly.

"Go see if the quartermaster has an Aete flag. If not, tell him to make one. On the double."

"What's an Aete flag your Highn- Sir?"

"It's what you wave when you don't want to fight a battle."

"We're _surrendering_ , sir?!"

"No boy, we're Lions," Zuko said with a sneer. "We don't surrender."

After he left Iroh leaned in across the table. "Should you be calling him 'boy'? He can't be that much younger than you."

"He's below the age of manhood, I'm above it. I thought that was a pretty clear distinction."

Iroh sighed. "You are sure about this? Your mandate is the Avatar, not this village, not this war. It's not shirking duty if you have a greater purpose."

"Are you suggesting I should have listened to that festering pile of ash?"

"Certainly not! You had a duty to stop and see what could be done. Zhao had a battleship! This might be a winnable battle with _that_ still sitting in the harbor." Iroh took a breath and continued, "but you _have_ stopped and _have_ seen what could be done. Surely our quest is the priority."

"My priority is Honor, Akodo Iroh," Zuko said coldly. "I will not allow this, the territory of the Fire-Nation, to fall into the hands of the enemy without doing everything within my power to stop it. The Avatar may not even be real, the cycle may be broken and no Avatar will be born again in this or any other age. THIS is REAL." He rose to leave.

"My apologies nephew," Iroh said bowing, "I'd forgotten myself." Zuko nodded to him and walked out. "I'd also forgotten" he finished quietly "what it's like to be so young."

* * *

The next day found the two Akodos on the only undamaged tower left on the town wall.

"Which one do you suppose he is, Uncle?"

"The big one," Iroh nodded sagely.

"They're _all_ big Uncle."

"In my experience, the one you have to fight is always the _big one._ "

"Quartermaster's finished the flag Sir," Ping chirped, poking his head through the trapdoor to the tower.

They climbed down from the tower in silence and found the company assembled in an almost decent looking formation.

"They're expecting you to give a speech," Iroh whispered.

Zuko glared at him, then at the troops in front of them.

He took the hastily assembled banner from Ping and turned to the men.

"My uncle tells me you're expecting a speech," Zuko growled. "Probably a bit of fluff about honor and glory, mostly to pump myself up. The simple truth is I'm headed out there to pick a fight with the biggest, meanest, hairiest earthbender I can find. I only ask that if I don't come back each of you do the same. Find the biggest, ugliest, rock-head out there and murder the ash out of him. So that way in twenty years, when our nephews and younger brothers come back, maybe the Earth-Kingdom girls will be worth looking at!"

The men cheered.

 _Well, that was easier than I expected,_ Zuko thought turning to the slowly opening gate and grinning. _Bit overdramatic but still, not bad!_

* * *

 _Ash and Bone. It IS the big one._

He had walked out of the gate of Doromuri with the flag held high. It was supposed to be black with red crossed swords, but really all his quartermaster had managed was a red 'x.'

 _Hopefully, these barbarians don't think it's a target,_ he thought to himself.

Rudimentary challenge flag in hand he walked halfway to the enemy encampment, just out of bowshot range for his men, just _inside_ boulder range for the enemy.

 _Let's hope they have SOME honor._

It turned out they did. The Earth Samurai lined up at the edge of their encampment to watch, and cheer for their champion. A champion who turned out to be the biggest man Zuko had ever seen. He was easily seven feet tall and had arms like tree trunks. He wore no upper body armor, in the style of many earthbending samurai, and carried an astonishingly large tetsubo over his shoulder. His daisho was the proper length but, based on the size of him, Zuko doubted he ever used them.

"I am Colonel Hiruma Lao," he thundered, his voice deep and gravelly "Commander of the slate battalion. UGH. Samurai of the Crab. HRG. Champion of the Southlands. GRG." After each statement he flexed and posed, as his uncle had told him earthbenders loved to do, grunting with mock effort.

"Bedder of ten thousand women. HRG."

 _Unlikely,_ Zuko thought, _unless they were willing to do all the work while you POSE._

The big man continued with his boasts until he finished with "Liberator of Shiro Yoritomo! GRAAAHHHH!" He thrust his arms upward, obviously cueing his men to cheer.

 _Apparently, Zhao won't be putting in at Shiro Yoritomo if this idiot is telling the truth.  
_

The rest sounded formulaic, as though it bored him to have to say it. "In the name of Hida Kuei, 52nd King of Earth, I bid you quit this village and depart forever from his lands."

"I am Lieutenant Akodo Zuko, commander of the Doromuri garrison. I am honored by your presence," Zuko said simply. His uncle had advised him not to get in a bragging match, otherwise it could go on for a while, eventually devolving into something near a children's tantrum.

"Also... No," he finished.

"Just a lieutenant eh?" the big man rumbled, "Not sure if you're even worth my time."

"I am a Prince if that makes you feel any better?"

"Oh. One of _those_ Akodos!"

 _What other Akodos are there, moron?_ Zuko thought furiously.

"So, you want to fight kid?" Lao said, grinning in what he must have thought was a menacing manner

"Well, you could just surrender. That _would_ be easier for all involved," Zuko said flatly.

"I'm going to enjoy crushing you boy," he snarled. "Plant the flag."

Zuko rammed the flag into the dirt, took a few steps back, and the duel began.

For a moment they stood motionless, in neutral stances, sizing one another up, their senses straining for the slightest movement. Then, from the outside at least, everything seemed to happen at once.

Zuko had decided that whatever the fool did he would lead with his uncle's "dragon breath" to throw him off guard. He'd see what his opponent did next and adjust from there. As the flames roared forth from his mouth he could see the Hiruma's eyes widen in surprise… but he wasn't unskilled. A wall of stone shot up out of the ground to intercept, then flew forward toward Zuko at impossible speed. Or rather flew toward where Zuko _had_ been. As soon as the stone blocked his opponent's view Zuko had sprung to his left, low and quick, around the wall. Drawing his katana, he lashed out at the earthbender's knee, scoring a hit just above the high iron boots he was wearing and continued the motion into a roll narrowly avoiding the monstrous tetsubo the giant brought down in an overhead swing.

The Hiruma roared furiously at being the first hit. Generally, Zuko was supposed to stop here, and ask if the matter was settled. It was perfectly honorable to end the duel at the first strike, but the fact that this was a battlefield and the fact the giant, if anything, was speeding up, not slowing down, dictated that he _was not_ going to surrender.

Zuko didn't even try to meet the Hiruma's massive tetsubo. Attempting to parry that with anything short of a _battleship_ was suicide. So he rolled and weaved, leapt and dodged. At one point he drew his wakizashi and made a series of x patterns along the giants back. He just couldn't get close enough for a decent cut that would end it.

 _Chip the boulder away._

He used fire to distract and strike from odd angles.

Chip.

He jumped on top of the enemies Tetsubo after a downward strike and would have ended with a horizontal sweep of his blade if the giant hadn't let go of his giant weapon and punched at him. It only glanced Zuko's armor but still seemed to rattle his bones. Still, fair trade for the cut along the bridge of the Crab's nose

Chip.

Hamstring, obliques, quadriceps, forearms, wherever wasn't armored Zuko struck. Glancing blows, a thousand cuts, a thousand burns.

CHIP.

The enemy officer was covered in blood, snorting like an enraged Boar-q-pine. Blood in his eyes, he roared in animal fury, and massive boulders began to erupt from the ground, jagged edges seeking to pierce anything and everything.

 _Time to end this._

Sheathing his great-great-uncle's sword he bent fire, blasting away at the nearly blinded earthbender. Weaving, now seeming slow, almost delicate, step-by-step forward. The Earthbender had coated his arms with stone to cover his face and didn't see Zuko's approach.

"AKODO!" Zuko screamed, summoning his blade of fire, bringing straight down at the Crab, putting everything he had into it.

It was enough.

The red bar of fire split through the Crab's hastily made defenses like a flame through deadwood, removing both hands at the wrist, and splitting his head down the middle to the neck. The blade of fire died, and Zuko was hit in the face by a gout of blood from an uncauterized artery.

Zuko longed to wipe his face, to remove the smell of blood from his nose, but it wasn't over yet. There were forms to be followed, courtesies to be upheld. Possibly the only courtesy his _father_ had ever taught him.

He had been maybe four, Azula barely walking. His father had seen him playing with his toy soldiers and had asked how the battle had fared.

"This is you papa. You won the duel!" Little Zuko had held up one of the soldiers, painted red, tiny katana in its hand. He'd then had it dance on top of a broken one, laughing. His tiny voice a childish echo of the Akodo maniacal laughter.

"No, no," Ozai said taking the toy from his hand. "You bow to your opponent's corpse Zuko. In thanks for a good fight and the honor it gave you. Then," he turned the doll to the pile of toys, "you bow to the enemy's family in regret that their warrior was not strong enough. Then," he turned the toy all the way around, "you walk away and don't look back. You _never_ look back Zuko."

"Why not papa?"

"Because only a _coward_ looks back," Ozai said, smiling maliciously.

Zuko followed his father's instructions to the letter, the scent of blood clogging his nose as he bowed, the sound of his heart, still beating too fast, thundering in his ears. Behind the thundering was an odd sound. A _happy_ sound? Like cheering? He raised his eye to the walls of Doromuri and saw the Ji-Samurai cheering, shouting, laughing in joy.

He made it back to the walls before the shakes started. His uncle had warned him about that as well. The gates closed and he nearly collapsed, his Uncle and Ping held him upright long enough to get him to a room. His teeth chattered, his hands shook. He wanted to clean his swords but couldn't even close his fist around the sheath. Iroh sat him down on a small stool and began to show Ping how to unbuckle the armor.

Zuko looked down at his hands and watched them shake. It had been expected. but he didn't understand why. He wasn't afraid, was he? He wasn't a _coward._ Was he?

"No, nephew," Iroh replied gently. Apparently, Zuko had spoken aloud. "It is not fear, just the spirit of battle passing through you. Our ancestors walked with you, and now they depart." He pressed his forehead to Zuko's, "and they are _very_ proud."

* * *

 **A/N: Welcome to the end of the chapter. Thoughts? Comments? Concerns?**

 **And now my random thoughts/explanations**

 **Currency** **: The Koku is an old form of currency in Japan, originally the value of the amount of rice it would take to feed one man for a year. Due to standard currency drift, it is probably not the same value in Zuko's time period. For my rough estimates, I assume the Koku to be about the value of the British pound in the Victorian era, slightly more than 100 modern day American dollars. In terms of the canon series assume Koku = 1 gold piece. In other related notes, the currency breakdown is 1 koku = 5 bu (silver piece). 1 bu = 20 Zeni (copper piece). 1 Zeni = 10 fu (iron piece).**

 **The grey ghost VS blue spirit** **: For some reason, I just didn't like the blue spirit mask in relation to this different version of Zuko. I just didn't see him buying something so distinct and possibly "gauche." I sort of picture the "Grey Ghost" mask to resemble No-Face's mask from Spirited Away. It marks one of my first major departures from canon behavior. So… NO blue spirit. Zuko is the Grey Ghost.  
**

 **Killing Maiko dead** **: I'll be straight with you right now, I did NOT read the comics. Certainly, I have access to the internet and know the** _ **gist**_ **of what went down but, didn't buy them, didn't read them. So, when doing research for this project I was** _ **very**_ **surprised to learn that Mai and Zuko split up. Who the HELL is Fire-Lord Izumi's mom? But be that as it may, I had already decided to put the nail in the Maiko coffin as early as possible. Mai is gay. Flat out. Ty Lee is a bit more… open but Mai is gay. So, there's that. Sorry if that ruins it for you.**

 **More discussion about scorpions** **: The Scorpion Dojo (or** _ **clan**_ **in L5R) is essentially the dojo of the ninja. Sun Tzu (or in this work Akodo) wrote that "All of warfare is based on deception" the Scorpion holds that as its founding principal. They are, for lack of a better word, Ninjas. There is a lot of cross-membership in the Fire-Nation (unlike in L5R). Ty Lee is from a family which is predominantly Lion. Ozai and Azula are members of the family that** _ **founded**_ **the Lion, yet they are still in the Scorpion dojo. The work will touch more on the conflict between the two dojos later but for simplicity's sake just know that Lion is more about** _ **Honor**_ **(HOONNNOOOORRRR!) and Scorpion is more about** _ **Duty.**_ **Both are tenants of bushido, both are important.**

 **The Aete Flag** **: This is just pure invention on my part. I have yet to find anywhere, in L5R or medieval Japan, that corresponds to a formalized mechanism for a pre-duel challenge that was accepted by both sides. Honestly, it seems like there should be though. It's a classic trope, two leaders come out between two armies and duke it out. For HONOR! But I didn't find anything, so I made something up. I regret nothing.  
**

 **Again, thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed it half as much as enjoyed writing it.**

 **NEXT WEEK on a very special "Avatar: The Last Dragon"...  
Iroh drinks tea! Zuko finds out that war is a messy business and that he's actually pretty good at it!  
TUNE IN. Same Zuko time, Same Zuko channel!  
Original post date: 5 May 2018**


	4. Crackling

**A/N: The Following is rated V for violence.**

 **Reader discretion is advised.**

* * *

Chapter 4 "Crackling"

* * *

 **Autumn, Year 7 of the reign of Fire-Lord Ozai**

Fighting, _real_ fighting, was exhausting.

After the duel, Zuko felt like he could sleep for at least a month, so obviously, the enemy had to start attacking. They held off for the rest of the day of the duel and the night following, more likely in respect for their fallen commander than any other reason, but the next dawn broke with the deep rumble of the Earth-Kingdom's battle horns, and on they came.

"Weren't they supposed to leave?" Ping asked worriedly.

"They had the option to," Zuko said fitting his gauntlets on over his forearms. "They could have returned home with their lives and honor intact, such is the purpose of the battlefield duel. Their new commander has, however, elected to continue."

"The good news is that I think the man you killed was the only one strong enough to fling boulders large enough to damage the gates. They'll have to close to bow range now," Iroh said nodding happily.

"Arrows?" Zuko asked as they walked to the command center, troops running to and fro hurriedly but purposefully.

"They've been attaching anything pointy to anything straight enough to fire since you came back from the duel," Iroh said.

"Sergeant!" Zuko roared.

"Highness!" a wiry man who had been introduced to him earlier as a Sgt Rin stepped forward to salute.

"Just Sir will do. Make sure the men know to pick their targets, no volley fire."

"Yes, Sir!"

"Cavalry? Zuko continued.

"None."

"Artillery? Zuko said, without enthusiasm, knowing the answer already.

His uncle simply cocked an eyebrow at him.

"I'm allowed to _hope_ , aren't I?"

"Supplies of that are low as well," Iroh said, amused at himself as he held open the door hut that served as the garrison command center.

"Well, now what do we do?"

"KILL THE UGLY ONES FIRST SIR!" screamed a young man rigidly saluting nearby.

"Somebody get that man a promotion," Iroh laughed.

* * *

 **Winter, Year 7 of the reign of Fire-Lord Ozai**

The next weeks were a blur for Zuko.

He would go to the wall before the sun rose every morning. Start blasting fire and shouting orders until Ping would arrive, tugging his sleeve, and tell him that his dinner was ready. He'd eat, rough rice and millet, and then sleep until his Uncle roused him, telling him the sun was again an hour away.

He got used to the stink. He hadn't realized at first but, corpses stank. Often as not their bowels would let loose as they died. He got used to the sound of heavy stones slamming against the walls, hearing wood splinter and crack. He got used to the sound of men screaming, either from burnt flesh, arrow wound or crushed bone. The sound of the horn the earthbenders blew to signal a retreat, deep and sonorous. He even got used to the front gate collapsing occasionally. He'd leap down, roaring with fury into the middle of the incursion, throwing fire and cleaving through bone with his swords. Pushing the enemy back until someone got more wood props to hold the gate closed.

Whoever the enemy commander was, he certainly wasn't imaginative. Of course, he didn't have to be. He was like Zuko facing their old commander. All he had to do was keep chipping away. Zuko lost men every day, unlucky chance taking them. They added up.

"This is foolish," Iroh griped one evening as Zuko was shoveling millet into his mouth. "There is no reason for these attacks, they have more than enough men to simply lay siege to us, live off the land around the area and let us starve."

Zuko swallowed. "Are you suggesting that we send him a thank you note?"

His uncle chuckled quietly but then became serious again. "I suggest that either he is a fool, he knows something we do not, or there is something that motivates him that we have not understood."

That night they made it through the gate while Zuko was sleeping.

Zuko was roused from the darkest pits of sleep to the sound of fighting not five paces from his hut. As he woke he saw Ping in between him and the open doorway, a trembling kitchen knife in his hands as he watched Zuko's uncle fight.

Iroh stood just outside the doorway, fire in his hands roaring in a battle fury Zuko had never seen from him before. The man always seemed so placid at times it was terribly easy to forget that he was the legendary Dragon of the West, something he was reminding the world of at this very moment as he stood in defense of his sleeping nephew.

Zuko rose slowly, grabbed his daisho and lightly put his hand on Ping's shoulder. "Put that down, they won't hurt you if you're unarmed," he said quietly, then charged into the fray. A few moments later the incursion was over, the great deep horn Earth-Kingdom horn sounded from the distance, and the remaining soldiers turned and retreated, joining a flood of other people, all in rough green.

"Ash," Zuko swore, "the peasants? They were after the peasants. Why in the Sun's name did they…"? His eyes trailed upward. "Blood of the Sun, it's the mountain! They must have landslides setup up there! They just wanted to get the peasants out first!"

Iroh's eyes widened. "We must hurry!"

The two Lions flew up the heavily wooded mountain, Zuko still in his sleeping robe, now torn and bloodstained. Iroh panting along behind, lamenting that he was out of shape, but still keeping a solid pace.

Finally, Iroh could go no further. "Go Zuko! They will be near the summit away from our sight. I have an idea!"

Zuko did not wait to hear what it was, if his Uncle had an idea it would be better than anything _he_ could come up with a day of planning and help from an oracle.

He increased his pace, his head humming with effort and he _felt_ the torches long before he saw the group of soldiers totting up the mountainside to his left, either to set off the traps or tell the soldiers already there to lose them.

Which they wouldn't. Not if he had anything to say about it they wouldn't.

There were a dozen soldiers, all Ji-Samurai if their uniforms were anything to go by. He leapt down upon them, shoving twin daggers of fire into the skulls of the two in the rear. Dragons Breath, Burning Dust, Shaking the Sheet, Rolling Thunder, form after form, kata after kata, it was a blur. Eleven dead, one fleeing.

"Coward!" Zuko screamed and gave chase.

The enemy was shouting something. Screaming for help?

The earth shook, the trap was loosed.

Zuko turned left, beginning to run perpendicular to the oncoming stone he couldn't see in the darkness but could _definitely_ feel. His bones seemed to shake with the raw power of the falling earth as he continued to sprint and when it passed him by, the sound of falling trees cracking like thunderbolts as it passed, he turned right and continued onward, up the mountain.

He ran, as hard as he could, as hard as he had ever run, and everything seemed to fall away. There was nothing but the way ahead, nothing but the goal before him. No pain in his lungs, in his wounds, or in his heart. The sound of the avalanche, of his footsteps, his labored breathing it all faded to silence.

And in that silence was _the song._

He had never heard it before, not really, but it felt as though it had truly been there all along. The voices rose and crashed, soaring and leaping through Zuko's heart and soul like crashing thunder, like a typhoon making landfall.

The voices of his ancestors.

His feet were not his own, his sword was not his own, his _fire_ was not his own. The song lifted him up, took him over, roiled through his veins like lightning and carried him forward and upwards.

 _For honor._

 _For duty._

 _For victory,_ the voices sang.

Zuko burst into a clearing, another half dozen soldiers stood looking down the hillside where one of four traps had been set off. One of them looked up and saw Zuko, standing before them, single eye wide, sword and tattered robe covered in blood.

"Stones and spirits, it's _him_!" he shouted in horror.

"AHHHH-KOOOOOOO-DOOOOOO!" Zuko roared, and the voices of the song roared along with him.

He fell upon them like a Lion on frightened fox-antelope.

* * *

He awoke.

Had he gotten them all? One, two, three… Three traps. Was that right?

"They set off the first one before I got here," someone said.

 _Who was that?_ he thought in confusion. _Oh, wait, it was me. I'm the only one here._

"Sir!?" a voice called from somewhere out of sight.

"Or not," he mumbled and tried to stand, failing miserably.

"Hello! Zuko here!" he said as loudly as he could.

 _You really are an idiot, aren't you?_ Mai's voice this time. He drifted back in into unconsciousness

* * *

He awoke, again.

This time he was back in his room in Doromuri, the sun shining through the open doorway. He tried to rise, he had to get to the wall! Why hadn't anybody woken him?

"Stop," said Iroh commandingly.

Zuko did so immediately, obeying his uncle out of familial duty as much as to avoid the pain that shot up his right side as soon as he lifted his head.

Zuko's mind cleared as he took a better look at his surroundings out if his remaining eye. His uncle sat, seemingly as ever, with a steaming cup of tea as he contemplated a Pai Sho board. His only sign of concern were the bags under his eyes and his topknot sitting a slightly askew. Ping on the other hand…

"Siiiiir!" he wailed bursting into tears and flinging himself at Zuko.

Zuko's first impulse was to blast him with fire. _How dare this PEASANT slobber all over me._

"Ping was very worried for you my prince," Iroh said raising one eyebrow. "You have been asleep for five days, and despite my assurances to the contrary he thought you might never wake up."

"I'm soooo sooooorrryyy," Ping wailed burying his face in Zuko's blankets.

"PING," Zuko began, snarling.

Iroh shot him a quelling look

"Ping, get ahold of yourself," Zuko said, gritting his teeth. "Go fetch Captain Atsui."

Ping rocked back. "He's dead sir. He died in the night raid." He hiccupped and wiped his nose on the somewhat ragged remnants of his sailor's uniform.

 _Ash and bone,_ Zuko swore internally, both in disgust at Ping and in consternation at the news.

"Who's in command then?"

"Sergeant Rin," Iroh supplied.

Zuko nodded, wincing at the movement. "Go fetch him, Ping. I'll need a status report."

Ping nodded nearly sprinting out of the room.

"Why does my entire body hurt?" Zuko asked once the boy had left.

"Scimitar wound, across the abdomen," Iroh answered. "Any deeper and we'd have had to stuff your guts back in." He paused. "But mostly it's the splinters."

"Splinters?"

"The landslide snapped a lot of trees in its path. It seems you were close enough to one for a few wood shards do some damage."

"And the town?"

"The town?"

"One of the traps was set off," Zuko snarled. "I wasn't fast enough."

"Oh. I took care of it."

"You… 'took care' of it?"

"Indeed." Iroh grinned enjoying the game.

"I don't suppose you'd care to share how you did it?" Zuko said dryly.

"Oh, you know. The usual way."

"Ash and bone, Uncle!" Zuko shouted, regretting it immediately as he winced in pain.

Iroh sighed. "Generally, Earthbenders like to aim their landslides with subtle depressions in the ground. Much like the one we ran up that night."

"It was _aimed_!?"

"Yes. Its course would have taken it right along and _through_ the main wall, taking it and most of the garrison down with it."

"That would have been… bad," Zuko said lamely.

"Yes indeed, but when a landslide is aimed like that it becomes easy to intercept. And while it was powerful enough to smash individual trees, a dozen, felled and supported by three or four tall stumps, is enough to stop it."

"You cut down trees?"

"Yes indeed, I will take you up and show you when you're well enough." He frowned. "But we've something more important to discuss."

"They're attacking again," Zuko said flatly.

"No, they disappeared after the landslide failed to bring down the wall," Iroh said stroking his beard. "I was speaking of Ping."

"Ping? What in the Sun's name has he got to do with anything?"

Iroh paused, sipping his tea. "You were just contemplating killing him, weren't you?"

Zuko narrowed his eye, pointedly _not_ denying it.

"Time and time again we have discussed not allowing your anger to overwhelm your good sense. Even I had thought you would have more concern for your retainers."

"He is _not_ my…"

" _You work for ME now Ping", "YES SIR!"_

 _Shit._

"I don't want a retainer," Zuko grumbled sulkily.

"Well, that's too bad, because not only did you tell him he worked for you, you saved his life. Earth peasants, _especially_ colonials take that quite seriously. If his behavior offends you, you simply need to take the time to teach him."

Zuko grumbled unhappily.

"Besides I'vealready taught him _just_ how to brew my tea. It would be a hassle to do it myself again."

Zuko rolled his eye.

Iroh smiled. "Now that I'm done chastising you I've one more thing." He unwrapped a leather water bag sitting next to him "It is traditional," he began, clearing his throat, "to give this to one's child when they command their first victorious battle. Much to my shame I never gave Lu Ten a chance to earn this." He pulled out a battered book, with a variety of extra pages shoved in, and multiple page markers. The spine simply read _LEADERSHIP._

Zuko's breath caught in his throat. "Uncle… I… I'm not…"

"You most certainly are! You took to command like a badger-mole to mountainside. And you'll be getting a great deal more practice."

"What…"

"Sgt Rin, sir!" Ping squeaked, poking his head through the door.

Sgt Rin was a tall, thin man with the beginnings of gray in his topknot. "Captain," he said saluting.

"I'm not a…"

The Sgt cut him off "If you'll forgive me, sir, I'm bound to inform you that pursuant to army regulation 30-6 chapter thirteen, article one, relating to assumption of command, specifically 'battlefield promotion' you are, forthwith, to assume the rank of Captain, and command of this company, sir."

"You're joking"

"I don't joke. Sir."

Zuko grunted. "Very well, status report."

* * *

 **Late Winter, Year 7 of the reign of Fire-Lord Ozai**

The local peasantry, those that didn't leave with the Earth-Kingdom army, found that they had nowhere else to go and returned to the village in dribbles. Once they discovered that Zuko wasn't going to have them all executed, then they flocked back in droves. With the peasants returned, the remaining rice in the fields could be harvested, and the local wildlife exploited again. Food was no longer a major concern, but Zuko didn't concern himself with the peasants.

Most peasants anyway.

"We do not use our _sleeves_ to clean our faces!" Zuko hissed at dinner.

"Yes, sir!" Ping squeaked sitting as rigidly as possible in seiza

"What kind of sailor doesn't know how to swim!" Zuko shouted from the shore.

Ping didn't say anything, being busy trying _not_ to drown.

"You can't _read_?!" Zuko snarled.

"No, sir!" Ping said looking ashamed.

Zuko stared at him. "We'll start at the beginning then."

Zuko had never had to teach anyone before, a process he found frustratingly difficult. Iroh refused to teach Ping anything not related to tea and it's brewing and went so far as to even refuse to give Zuko _advice_.

"You'll have to figure it out for yourself nephew. But once you do you'll find it one of the most satisfying things you ever do."

Zuko wasn't sure about that. He was pretty sure the winning his first duel against a giant

earthbending colonel would be in the top spot for at least a decade.

He began by making Ping memorize his copy of " _A Sailor's Primer._ " It was information Ping should have already learned, but Zuko wasn't taking any chances at this point. After Zuko read it to him out loud and made sure Ping could recite it, backward, forwards and once standing on his head, he made him copy out the text, sounding out each character as he did. He had him copy out each page a hundred times in chalk if only to extend the period of time that he would be left in peace. In peace with his new copy of _LEADERSHIP._

 _LEADERSHIP_ was _the_ book of the Lion and the Fire-Nation armed forces. It had been written by Akodo, the founder of the Lion dojo, the first Fire-Lord, and Zuko's distant ancestor, concerning the nature of warfare, tactics, strategic thought, and the command and use of soldiers, both in battle and out. Almost every Fire-Nation samurai, and especially every _Lion_ samurai, had a copy. It was easily the most printed book in the entire nation. Zuko had received his immediately after his gempukku.

Akodo's original published book had left a dozen blank pages at the end of the text, prefaced only with a restatement of one of the previous lines. "A plan survives only until the first arrow is loosed." This was a now common phrase, indicating that "things change." Akodo had intended the book to be a living document, and over the years it became traditional for one with a copy of the book to make his own observations, comments, additions, and subtractions, then to share these with those he felt worthy. Every half-century or less, the war college high command would get together and compare notes, anything found in common would be compiled and published as an "appendix." Despite the age of the book, there were startlingly few appendices, the largest of which was relatively recent and concerned clarification and specification as to how the primary text related to naval warfare.

Zuko's own copy of the book was brand new and had only his name on the front page. Hoping to glean a little knowledge he'd brought it with him to the war meeting that ruined him so disastrously. As such it was an unpleasant reminder of his failure, and he had not given it the attention it was most likely due. Iroh's copy was _old_ , it had notes from Iroh, his father Azulon, his grandfather Sozen and _his_ father Oda. _Four_ Fire-Lords and a crown prince. It was quite literally a book of the current great war.

Fire-Lord Oda had sworn to conquer the world, and his younger brother Ken-Ryu, who's swords rested in their stand next to Zuko as he read, had obliged him. Several of the pages shoved in the back, glued in actually, were in Ken-Ryu's own hand. Letters from the Shogun, back to his brother concerning the campaign. It was fascinating and Zuko could have spent years simply executing his duty as garrison commander, training Ping and reading LEADERSHIP.

If more warships had not inevitably arrived, reminding him of his duty,

To capture the Avatar.

* * *

 **Spring, Year 8 of the reign of Fire-Lord Ozai**

The warships sat in the harbor and Zuko fumed at them silently.

"You mean to refuse us passage Commander?" Iroh asked of the ship's commander while Ping served tea.

"Certainly not general!" said Commander Shira, a steel-haired naval officer who was of an age with Iroh. "But my orders indicate that I'm to disembark the battalion I'm carrying and then _HOLD_ my position. All the other port villages of Chameleon Bay _and_ Shiro Yoritomo have fallen and high command needs to make certain that we still have a foothold, lest we lose the whole thing."

"You have more than one ship!" Zuko said hotly. "You can't even have one take us south? They don't have to stay!"

Shira looked apologetic and bowed slightly where she sat. "Forgive me highness, but my orders are quite specific. I'm even forbidden from _patrolling_ out of sight of this village, which I consider to be tremendously unsafe. But those _are_ my orders. Also, I should point out, that due to the current situation no non-military vessel of any size will be coming into the bay for some time." Unlike Zhao she put no scorn on the word highness, seeming truly apologetic.

"It's alright Shira, we understand. Orders are orders after all," Iroh said smiling warmly, patting her hand and then leaving it there a little longer than was strictly necessary.

Commander Shira smiled back, both warmly and far less subtly than Iroh did, causing the older man to waggle his eyebrows suggestively.

Zuko rolled his eye and loudly cleared his throat as he got to his feet. "I'll go find the battalion commander, see what _his_ orders entail. Ping!"

Ping, moving much more carefully than he had a few months ago, put the teapot down, and gathered up his writing apparatus. He'd been serving as a kind of secretary for Zuko in the last few weeks, in part as practice for his writing, but mostly because Zuko had discovered that his memory for _what_ people said was nothing short of exceptional. It might still take him a half an hour to write a single paragraph, but he would remember whole conversations and be able to recite them, verbatim, even weeks after the fact.

Zuko was immensely pleased with his progress, going so far as to contemplate beginning weapons training. Perhaps if Zuko ever got back to the Fire-Nation he'd see if he could get Ping into a suitable dojo. Not _Lion_ perhaps, he wasn't a member of the aristocracy after all, but Wolf maybe or Hawk. Zuko had finally had to admit to himself that Ping was no longer a peasant, he even had the rudiments of _table manners_ now.

"Ready sir," Ping replied calmly, the squeak had disappeared as well.

* * *

They marched north.

To say that Zuko was irritated initially was an understatement. The commander of the battalion, a Colonel Rai, had been sympathetic but he too had his orders. He was to reinforce the garrison at Doromuri, then march his battalion north along the bay to support naval engagements at the local ports and then begin making assessments for a siege of Shiro Yoritomo. The best he could offer, within the scope of his orders, was to reinforce the garrison with one of his _other_ commanders and take Zuko's company north with him. He too seemed more apologetic than scornful and admitted himself bemused to potentially have a prince of the realm, however banished and however nominally, under his command.

 _Apparently, Zhao was the exception rather than the rule when it comes to courtesy,_ Zuko thought.

If the colonel was "bemused" by Zuko, it was _nothing_ to how he felt when he discovered that General Iroh, _THE_ General Iroh was there as well.

"General Iroh?!" he said, almost squeaking like Ping and bowing so low he almost fell over.

"Ah, Rai! Good to see you again. Glad to see you didn't drop out of school after all." Iroh said genially. He had apparently been one of Colonel Rai's sensei at the war college before he left to command the siege of Ba Sing Se.

"N-no, Sir!"

Rai had practically begged Zuko to come north with him at that point, going so far as to prematurely assign one of his companies to garrison duty and pointing out that if Zuko stayed behind the battalion would be shorthanded.

Zuko obliged him.

Having only known command in a garrison under siege Zuko was pleasantly surprised by life in a war camp after his initial irritation subsided. His men's armor was repaired and in some cases was replaced outright. Their discipline, which had already been on the rise after Zuko's arrival, tightened up further. Their pride at being "veterans" and their proximity to new troops put a spring in their step and the morale on the rise. The food, if not necessarily fresher, became better. Stocks of salted meat, fish, and Fire-Nation sake coming in with the supply train. Zuko also had access to messenger hawks, and within a few days of the march north he received a small stack of letters from his "spies."

Mai's letters, much like the girl herself, were very dry things. Weather, the goings on of the palace and her home. Her irritation with life in general, and _"oh I suppose I should mention"_ her mother had become pregnant. Leave it the girl to treat something so significant as an afterthought, despite devoting an entire page to how boring things were.

Ty Lee's letters were, of course, entirely the opposite. Incredibly bombastic, she went on and on about the oddest things. The clothes people were wearing, her discovery of an excellent restaurant, a poetry reading one of her sisters had given. She had six sisters, all identical, and Zuko was never quite sure which one she was referring to at any given point as all of their names began with the character for "Ty." One of her letters contained a small block print of a rearing lion she had bought while "out," Zuko assumed on a date, with Mai. Another of her letters had an official note that came with it indicating that the parcel of _dried fruit_ was too large to be shipped by messenger hawk. Zuko laughed out loud at that one. He gave many of these letters to Ping to practice his reading, Ty Lee's letters being large and her skill at calligraphy actually quite beautiful.

He also received a single letter from Azula. It was exceptionally formal, a princess deigning to write to a common soldier. Zuko supposed that it was in case their father, or one of his agents, intercepted it. She did mention that father had actually used his name in public, his defense of Doromuri having come up in the dispatches and a War Council meeting. He had only confirmed that the "Captain" Akodo was Zuko and had not mentioned it after that.

 _Best you could have expected,_ Zuko mused.

She capped off her letter by saying that she was _inspired_ to write him, after seeing how much Mai and Ty Lee had.

 _Didn't take long for her to find out about that, did it?_ Zuko thought ruefully.

Dutiful brother that he was, he wrote a letter back to Azula first. He thanked her for wasting her time on her elder brother, wishing her well. He described the circumstances leading to his arrival in Chameleon Bay, and how aggravating it was that circumstances did not allow for him to go to the eastern air temple as he had originally wished to do.

He spent only a paragraph describing the siege. He'd taken a dislike to boasting after seeing that giant Hiruma flex and pose for minutes on end. The phrasing was not as subtle as he would have liked, but he also attempted to convey that he would like her to give his regards to their father as well. He mused over the exact wording for days before sending it off.

Mai and Ty Lee got letters as well. He told Mai that soldiering was rather boring most of the time too and that the exciting bits were the parts that got your hurt or killed. He thanked Ty Lee for the painting, explaining that he now had it in his writing case. Also, that she shouldn't try to send any more fruit as it was too big for a messenger hawk. In both letters, he pointedly mentioned Azula's letter and the fact that she had been "inspired" by them. No reason to keep them in the dark after all.

Despite the fact that Zuko was by far the youngest captain, and indeed the youngest officer period, he got along well enough with his "peers." He was aware of how odd his position was and never challenged his company's placement due to his junior status. He preferred to listen anyway, sitting back from the table during staff meetings, speaking only when spoken too. His last interjection in a meeting had cost him an eye, and while he doubted his father would stroll in and punish him here, he was determined not to make the same mistake again.

The very idea made him sick to his stomach.

The war camp had its problems as well. Namely _girls_. Zuko was almost sixteen, and other than his friendship with Ty Lee and his minor crush on Mai, he'd never really had much exposure to women on the whole. His company from Doromuri was an oddity in that it had had no female soldiers at all, something his men lamented to no end when they thought he wasn't listening. Now, however, they seemed to be _everywhere_ , washerwomen for laundry and tailoring work and soldiers in the other companies. There was even, allegedly, a Geisha tent somewhere in camp, though Zuko was far too nervous to ask where it might be found. His uncle had told him that he must be careful should he go there, as at least one of them, if not more, would be a full Scorpion samurai in disguise, spying and watching the camp for treachery.

Zuko was irritated at himself and what he saw as a lack of personal control on his part. The washerwomen were just there to do their job, and Zuko would not burden them with the attentions of a tremendously ugly teenager. That, and they were _peasants_ he reminded himself forcefully, catching himself watching a few his age at work, chatting amiably with one another, water dripping slowly down their…

Zuko decided to avoid the washerwomen whenever possible.

The soldiers were another problem entirely. He could stay away from geisha and peasants easily enough, he had begun sending Ping with his laundry after an incident where a young woman had squeaked in terror at his scarred face, but he _had_ to interact with soldiers and especially officers in the course of his duties.

 _They're soldiers! That's all! Do NOT disgrace yourself!_ He raged internally. This did not change the fact that he was far more likely to say something extremely stupid in their presence.

One, an exceptionally pretty lieutenant named Kitsu Rainesu, who's looks paired with her family's traditional red-orange hair nearly caused the functional half of his face to burst into flames every time she so much as spoke to him. It was highly embarrassing. To his growing horror, he found himself having dreams in which she, dressed as a washerwoman, offered to wash… other places as well. Zuko spent many nights being so restless he abandoned sleep and left his tent to practice his bending and swordsmanship.

He had acquired Ping a boken, a wooden practice sword, and had begun on the basics. He had made Ping swear _not_ to pick up a weapon during battle or he would be cut down as an enemy combatant. Ping had agreed excitedly, and now often found himself woken in the late nights and early mornings when Zuko couldn't sleep to practice. Mostly Zuko had him do the thousand cuts and a few simpler kata, just to build arm strength and the appropriate calluses. More advanced training would have to wait until Ping was ready.

The march up the coast was slow, but not strenuous. Colonel Rai had not been given a timetable for his campaign and was in no hurry, preferring to let his men stretch their legs after the long sea voyage. The first village after Doromuri was called Soromuri and Zuko found himself mildly amused at the lack of Earth-Kingdom imagination where naming was concerned. The village surrendered without a fight. The remnants of the "Slate" battalion Zuko had fought had passed through months ago and had stripped the granaries bare. The peasants weren't starving yet, but it would be a close thing in the coming months.

Colonel Rai sent messages to this effect back to Captain Shira's task force and to high command as well, also informing them of his decision _not_ to garrison the town as he expected heavy resistance in the next.

"A sound choice," Iroh said to Zuko that night as they shared dinner.

"You think so? What if the enemy or just ordinary bandits sneak around us"

"Bah. Rai is not such a fool as that. He will have scouts far enough out to spot enemy movements should any be foolish enough to try and slip past. Bandits generally stay clear of any province where large battles are likely to happen. They will wait on the fringes to try and swoop down after we leave." Iroh said as he sipped his tea. "But I think his reasoning is more concerned with the fact that if he garrisoned any troops here, what is currently a _possibility_ of starvation for the locals would become a near certainty."

Zuko nodded. He had been taught that the peasantry were a resource, one that harvested the food and mined the iron. Most importantly they were a resource that _belonged_ to the Fire-Lord and had to be respected as such. To lose them needlessly would be wasteful and not just a little bit insulting to his father.

Boromuri, the third village (and this time the Colonel and all the other officers found the local naming convention amusing as well) _was_ fortified and garrisoned. It made sense, it occupied a far better position on a small hillside than the previous town.

With food supplies looted from the previous village, and the surrounding countryside

stripped bare in the months since they'd departed Zuko's doorstep, The enemy had enough supplies to hold out for the rest of the year. Longer if they rationed, or even denied the peasants food.

Colonel Rai hadn't been given a timetable but being bogged down besieging such a small town was far to dishonorable an option to be considered.

Assault was the only option.

Honor demanded nothing less.

* * *

 **A/N:**

 **First off, thanks for reading. You are the spark that lights the fires of… something-something… I like it when people read my stuff.**

 **And now the rambly bits.**

 **The Song: Ever had runner's high? Ever been to a sporting event with 100,000 people screaming after a close last-second win? Ever had your hair stand up straight during a movie, or while reading a book? Ever been in a fight? The "song" is all that and more. For those of you who actually play (or have the books for) l5r I highly recommend the preface to chapter 1 of "the way of the lion" book. Spectacular little vignettes.**

 **LEADERSHIP: The book of the Lion founder is more than just a book of strategy for the Lion clan (dojo) it's more a philosophical treatise on life itself. Yes, it IS Sun Tzu's** _ **Art of War**_ **. It is also, Clausewitz's** _ **On War**_ **, Renatus's** _ **De Re Militari**_ **, all of the U.S. Army's** _ **FMs and ARs,**_ **and the works of Confucius. It is a lot of things, so… important.**

 **Again, thanks for reading! Feel free to concrit, comment, and all that good stuff!**

 **NEXT WEEK on a very special "Avatar: The Last Dragon"...  
Iroh drinks tea! Zuko kicks ass and makes mistakes!  
TUNE IN. Same Zuko time, Same Zuko channel!  
Original post date: 12 May 2018**


	5. Snap

**A/N: The Following is rated SD, for slightly dark.**

 **Reader discretion is advised.**

* * *

Chapter 5 "SNAP"

* * *

 **Spring, Year 8 in the reign of Fire-Lord Ozai**

For the first time ever Zuko wished he was an earthbender.

Fortifications, removing, repairing or creating them, was as easy as breathing for them and fire splashed off the reinforced walls of Boromuri as harmlessly as rain. Trying and launch fire _over_ the wall was both pointless and dangerous as the villagers' houses were made of stone and getting close enough for a good shot put you inside of boulder and arrow range. Unfortunately for Zuko, it seemed that having boulders thrown at him would be unavoidable as ladders were the order of the day.

Trying to get them over the wall was a nightmare.

All the defenders had to do was earthbend the wall out a bit and tip the ladders over. Whoever had been unfortunate enough to be on the ladder at the time would find themselves flat on their back, arrows, and stones raining down them.

Zuko saw how Colonel Rai's strategy was similar to a one on one fight versus an earthbender. Many angles of attack, many directions, his forces encircling the village and be probing the wall's defences in a seemingly chaotic manner. In truth the preliminary strategy was not even to truly use the ladders, the goal was to draw the enemy benders into the open to so they could be killed with flame or arrows.

Again, and again, the soldiers of the Fire-Nation launched themselves, bellowing war-cries and family names, at the walls. Again, and again they were repulsed. Occasionally one of the archers with their massive daikyu would catch a glimpse of their targets as they bent the stone walls of the fort, but only rarely were they fast enough to put arrow to string and send the enemy to their ancestors.

All in all, it seemed futile.

Zuko, not used to seeing his men die for no result, grew so enraged at the ineffectiveness of the tactic that on his company's third attempt at scaling the walls he mounted the ladder _himself_. As he made the top of the wall an earthbender pushed the ladder away again as expected. What he didn't expect was for Zuko to manage to quickly leap onto the wall and behead him. Just as quickly, however, he found himself swamped by a dozen Earth-Kingdom Ji-Samurai, with hammers, tetsubo, and katanas of their own.

Zuko managed to hold his own, even scoring a few hits while his men struggled to get the ladder upright again. They had just managed to get the ladder in place when Zuko caught sight of another giant bender in armor of pale blue and Earth green, it's marking indicating a superior officer. The giant, most likely of the Crab dojo, stomped his foot and gestured outward in the "parting the way" kata. An eight-foot-wide slab, centered roughly on Zuko, separated itself from the top of the wall and flew away with terrific speed. Zuko found himself flying gracelessly backward through the air, arms pinwheeling, with a half dozen Ji-samurai and the shattered remnants of a ladder for company.

Only through muscle memory borne of long hours of practice was he able to get his sword back in its sheath before he hit the ground. The Crab earthbender had at least pushed him far enough away to land off of the hillside the town wall was built on. While he didn't manage to make it look easy, as he was sure Azula would have, he landed well enough to avoid any broken bones. It did knock the wind right out of him, which made it all the harder to avoid the slab of stone that had come down at the same time. It slid down the hillside, no slower for having already run over two of the enemy samurai who had been flung along with him, and he managed to force his body into a roll, narrowly avoiding the block and came upon one knee.

The giant Crab appeared at the top of the wall, already repaired to its previous state. Zuko and he made eye contact for a moment as Zuko fought to recover his breath. With a shout, Zuko flung a gout of crimson flame at his opponent but the Crab simply turned away, his arm making a curling motion, rotating a block of stone to block Zuko's blast.

 _Smug pile of Ash,_ Zuko snarled internally.

* * *

Iroh seemed torn.

Torn between shouting at Zuko for being reckless and praising him for setting an example for his men. Men loved an officer willing to share the dangers of combat and _adored_ one who showed himself successful when he did so. He knew that better than anyone. He settled for a gruff pat on the back and a mild admonishment not to become full of himself.

He knew about being full of himself too.

Colonel Rai had no such compunctions.

"Your Highness," he said, his tone harsh and commanding. "I know very well that I _technically_ have no authority to order you to do anything, but I hope you will do me the courtesy of _not dying_ while tentatively under my command? I would very much enjoy _not_ having to explain to his Majesty the details of your demise in an engagement barely even worth his attention. I doubt that my death alone would satisfy him." He glanced around at the assembled officers, indicating that they would most likely have to commit seppuku as well.

Zuko was taken aback. He'd been dressed down before. His father, his uncle and even his sister had shouted at him on more than a few occasions. But this was different, Colonel Rai was a _commoner_ and the staff meeting was very much a _public_ respected him but…

 _How dare he,_ hissed his father's voice. _Execute him._

Zuko rose to his feet, his fury building and as his eye swept around the room and found the assembled officers… worried, tense. His eye found Lt. Rainesu, sitting bolt upright, eyes straight ahead, her lovely face as pale as the moon. She looked… terrified.

His rage evaporated.

Arms stiff at his sides he bowed, back parallel to the floor. "I… apologize. I had not considered how my actions affected the rest of you. You have all shown me a great deal of patience and granted me this opportunity." Heat colored his cheek as he forced himself to continue. "I confess that my youth has shown me to be… rash at times and I grew frustrated at our lack of success and…" _be honest,_ "ENRAGED at the death of my soldiers."

 _This will be the difficult part._

"All I can do in recompense is offer you my soldiers, that you might find them a more worthy commander."

He held the bow, waiting to see.

The heartbeat it took seemed an eternity to Zuko.

"COMPLETELY unnecessary highness!" The Colonel stopped just short of jumping to his feet. "Your humility brings us honor and is a credit to your father." He bowed and was quickly followed by the entire table. When they all rose from their bows Zuko found the tension had disappeared, officers smiled at one another and visibly sighed in relief.

"Although, if you will permit me highness?" Colonel Rai asked.

Zuko nodded shortly.

"I had not wished to offer you offense by implying you incapable, highness. But for some time, I have thought that it might make your life somewhat less stressful if you had a junior officer to aid you," Rai said smiling.

Zuko nodded, he could see the sense in that. He'd been doing all of the paperwork and planning for a company, work normally assigned to at _least_ three, as well as teach Ping. Despite that knowledge, he also could see how, had he been in the wrong kind of mood, he very easily _could_ have been offended by the suggestion. As though he might need a _babysitter._

"Thank you, Highness," Rai said, bowing again. "Who is senior among the lieutenants?" he asked the room at large.

"I believe I am sir," said Lt Rainesu smiling.

 _Oh, ash!_ thought Zuko, face going wooden in reflex. _Somebody contradict her!_

"Well. If Captain Kiko has no objections?"

 _I'VE GOT OBJECTIONS!_

"None whatsoever sir," Cpt Kiko responded also smiling.

 _Not good. NOT GOOD._

"Excellent, move yourself over by Captain Zuko then."

 _How in the Sun's name am I supposed to have a junior officer I can barely speak to?!_ He thought, eye staring straight ahead, face a mask.

Rainesu sat down in the chair next to him and leaned over, her not insubstantial bosom brushing his arm.

"I place myself in your care highness," she whispered in his ear, so as to not to interrupt the briefing another officer had begun.

Zuko, his heart now beating faster than it ever had during duels, battles or sieges of any kind, somehow managed a nod.

* * *

"Sir? Are you sure you won't reconsider?" Ping asked hesitantly, wiping the sleep from his eyes.

"You don't _want_ training?!" Zuko said harshly.

Ping shook his head in denial. "It's not that sir it's just that…" he bit his lip.

"What?!" shouted Zuko.

"Sir, you haven't slept in three days, Sir!" Ping said, shutting his eyes as though in anticipation of a strike but not, Zuko noted with a small burst of pride, flinching.

Ping did have a point.

Lt. Rainesu was a perfect officer, incredibly efficient and dedicated. So, dedicated in fact that she had had her tent moved _right next to his_ and insisted that he not hesitate to call on her if he needed _ANYTHING._ That phrase, along with "I place myself in your care highness," had _immediately_ become a major feature in Zuko's dreams. All of which had also become more varied and explicit.

So he hadn't slept much in the three days since she had been assigned to him.

Iroh, of course, had been immediately taken with her.

"I think I could die a happy man if only I could use her lap as a pillow for a half an hour," he sighed after she left following her introduction.

Zuko's men, also unsurprisingly, felt much the same way. Morale, which already had been high following Zuko's "heroics," skyrocketed after her first-morning brief.

"Leave it to the Captain to land the biggest fish in the pond," they had been heard to remark when they thought he wasn't in earshot.

Despite her excellence as an officer and her obvious intelligence, she was somehow _completely_ unaware of the effect she had on Zuko, interpreting his silence as "royal stoicism."

All that changed the next day.

He had told Ping to get some sleep the night before and to meet him at their training circle after the morning meal. But when he arrived it was the lieutenant that greeted him.

"I hope you don't mind sir, but I needed Ping to run some messages to the hawk roost and offered to take his place here." She smiled, brightly unaware that _she_ was the reason he came here so often.

The right side of his face, the only side that could, immediately began to flush, he struggled to speak.

"That's... not… I…." he struggled to clear his throat as his voice had cracked sharply.

 _Ash and bone, your voice hasn't done that in over a year! Why now?_ He groaned internally _Just… keep it simple._

"Not a good idea," he mumbled lamely.

"Sir?" she said questioningly. If she was playing dumb, she somehow managed to make _that_ look attractive as well

"Sword or Flame?" he growled, trying to pitch his voice lower and managed to sound more like he was gargling than anything else

"Sword please," she smiled brightly, "I place myself in your care highness."

Zuko shivered. _This is just… unfair._

They bowed formally and took their stances. Immediately Zuko felt something was off.

 _Is she testing me? Thinking to take it easy on me because she is older?_ He mused. _She's not THAT much older. Why, if we went to a festival hand in hand nobody would even look twi- ARRGGGG! STOP THAT!_ He shouted at himself _._

She came at him quickly, but with an odd set to her shoulders, her balance completely off. He blocked without even thinking about it. His mind snapping into focus with the first meeting of the wooden practice blades.

 _How dare she patronize me?!_ He snarled internally, embarrassment burning away at his sudden fury. _I'll make her show me what she's capable of!_ He did a simple wrist circle and forward lunge to lock blades.

Her boken flew out of her hands.

"Oh!" she cried blushing, "sorry sir, I should have warmed up better."

Zuko watched her fetch her sword, eye narrowed, now completely ignorant of how delightful she looked as she bent to retrieve it.

 _What sort of stratagem is this? Making me pity her in order to drop my guard? Why bother, I was putty in her hands a moment ago?_

The bout continued, Lt Rainesu trying what appeared to be her best, Zuko barely paying attention to the moves he used, instead just watching her, looking for whatever it was she was concealing. He pressed her in unexpected ways to force her to reveal whatever skill she was hiding so carefully. A cold dispassionate paranoia, the product of a life in the royal court and a younger sister who was ten times smarter than him, gripped his mind as he watched her fumble through sword forms and stances.

After ten minutes, in which he had disarmed her four times, he was forced to concede that she wasn't hiding anything. Another minute and he figured out why.

 _Nobody wants to hit her,_ he realized, stunned. _She's too pretty to hit._

His rage burst over him like the sun over the horizon.

He spent the next five minutes hitting he more and harder than she had probably ever been hit in her life. Arms, legs, torso, anywhere it would bruise, hurt fiercely, but not have a chance of causing permanent damage he struck, again and again. He understood of course, a part of him winced terribly with every whimper she let out, but that part was a candle next to the sun of his rage.

 _How dare they,_ he thought coldly. _How dare they send this girl out here ENTIRELY unprepared, like a lamb to slaughter. How dare they give her a daisho and demean the oaths of a Samurai! How dare they foster such weakness in my NATION!_

He finished it by not only disarming her again, but capturing her blade and forcing her down, both wooden blades at her throat. He leaned in close, capturing her wide gray eyes in his blind white and malignant yellow.

"You will speak to no one," he snarled quietly. "You will go to your tent and write down the name of every person who ever _claimed_ to teach you swordsmanship. You will bring it to me. You will talk to NO ONE. You will then return to your tent and meditate on how they _failed you_ until sundown. You will then return here and train with _Ping_. You will train with Ping every night until such time as I am satisfied that you have more skill than a _ten-year-old peasant_ and are no longer a danger to yourself and others."

She was weeping silently now, and the candle's heart broke with pity for her. The part of him that was Akodo on the other hand almost gave up on her, then and there.

"Why are you still here?" he rasped coldly. His voice didn't crack at all.

She flew away, still silently weeping.

* * *

"I cannot believe you made that poor girl cry!" Iroh said lamentingly as Zuko entered his tent

 _This,_ he thought, _this is why she's weak._

He advanced on his uncle so suddenly Iroh assumed a guard stance reflexively.

"That 'poor girl,'" he sneered, "is the most incompetent swordsman I have ever seen." He kept his voice low, she was in the tent next door after all, and he wanted her alone with her thoughts.

"Surely not," said Iroh, "she may not be as skilled as you nephew-"

"She's not even as skilled as _Ping,_ " he growled, fighting not to shout. "Her guard stance has her weight on her heels, she has no wrist strength to speak of, she spent about a minute holding her boken, blade up…"

"That's not…"

"In Chudan, the tip of her blade was pointing _here_ " he pointed over his left shoulder. The blade was _supposed_ to be pointing at his throat.

Iroh grew pale. "But why?" he whispered, shocked. The base stance of Chudan was the foundation of everything. If she had _that_ wrong...

"Because she's so _pretty_ nobody wants to hit her," Zuko spat, barely keeping his rage in check. "Nobody even wants to tell her she's doing it wrong."

"What will you do, nephew?" Iroh asked still stunned.

"I will _correct_ this deficiency," he made it sound like a pronouncement of a death sentence, which in some ways it was. "She and Ping will receive very little sleep for quite some time. They _will_ be competent fighters by the time we reach Shiro Yoritomo." There was not even the implication that there _could_ be an "or" at the end of that sentence.

Rainesu entered the tent eyes red and downcast, she lowered herself gracelessly to the floor and, bowing low, delivered the list as he had instructed. She rose shakily and, still bent practically in half, exited.

"What is that?" asked Iroh

"The names of all the people who failed her," Zuko said icily, bending to pick it up.

"And what do you plan to do with that here?" Iroh asked cautiously.

"Send it to Azula."

Iroh went paler than before. "You can't be serious."

"I will _CORRECT_ this deficiency," Zuko said sitting down at his writing desk.

* * *

 **Late Spring, Year 8 in the reign of Fire-Lord Ozai**

The state of the siege remained unchanged for almost a month until the navy arrived.

Once the warships anchored off the harbor they began shelling the town wall with their catapults. A few bent stones flew their way but nothing large enough to do any damage made it anywhere close. Colonel Rai, dispatched more scouts to ensure the earthbenders didn't escape through any tunnel systems. It was a wise idea, but the earthbenders were a step ahead, and the tunnel that they escaped through was easily ten miles long.

"They would have started this almost as soon as we arrived," Iroh said. He, Zuko and a few other officers were examining the front of the tunnel.

"What makes you say that General?" Rainesu asked. She looked exhausted but no less cheerful than before.

Iroh drew himself up proudly. "The soil in the region is too soft for this to be easy. The support columns on the walls indicate that. The fact that they are so irregularly spaced indicates that they have been here long enough for structural weakness to appear!" he continued pontificating, drawing conclusions based on his copious experience fighting in the Earth-Kingdom.

Zuko wasn't listening, he simply stared down the tunnel and _seethed._ They had escaped. He had been bound and determined that he would find and _kill_ that Crab who had looked down on him so disdainfully. A large part of him wanted to simply tear off down the tunnel seeking him out, a hunting dog on the scent of prey. But he restrained himself, not only would it be pointless, it would reckless. They had without a doubt left a variety of fatal "surprises" along the path and he also had responsibilities here.

His two main _responsibilities_ were still dutifully listening to his uncle, who was now speculating on what earthbending school the architect of the tunnel might have come from. Zuko had been pleased to find, once the film had been lifted from his eye, that in all other regards he had not been wrong about Lieutenant Rainesu. She _was_ intelligent and very diligent, setting herself an additional training regimen in addition to the grueling workout that he had set for her. She also picked up better habits in sword fighting quite quickly, but not so quickly that he suspected her of faking her early ineptitude. He'd had another momentary flash of paranoia where he had thought she might be some sort of master spy, worming her way into his defenses, assuring him she was no threat until she got close enough to strike.

He discarded the theory rather quickly. Firstly, he'd already proven to himself she hadn't been faking her lack of skill. You could only fake so much before muscle memory gave you away. Second, who would have both the authority and the desire to see him either dead or spied upon so closely? His father could simply order him to fall upon his sword, Zuko would do so without hesitation as seppuku would restore his honor. His sister might, but with his banishment, she was clearly the natural choice for succession and had no real need for subterfuge.

 _Besides,_ Zuko thought with a smile, _if Azula wanted to kill me I've no doubt she would want to do it herself. We're family after all._

Thirdly, she simply wasn't old enough. She was just shy of twenty. How she had made it almost seven years without learning swordsmanship Zuko could not fathom, but the level of skill she would have to have, to suppress even muscle memory as part of a ruse, was something that would take a master.

Fourthly, and this shamed Zuko to his bones, if she had _wanted_ to manipulate him she had only needed to invite him to her tent that first night. He would have gone without question, probably _ran_ in fact.

 _I'm not entirely certain that I could say no even now,_ Zuko thought angrily.

She was lovely, but where before her mere presence set his heart to a sprinting pace, now it was a dull throb. He couldn't look at her without seeing weakness. Not in _her_ specifically, but in the very system itself. He'd always thought the fire shugenja caught everything, purged every weakness without fail. Yet here was this girl, with all the makings of a perfect Samurai, who had survived for _YEARS_ fostering a weakness that should have seen her dead after a few minutes in her gempukku trials. What else had they missed? What if _he_ was weak? What it if _that_ was why he had been banished?

He would not be weak, and neither would she.

* * *

 **Early Summer, Year 8 in the reign of Fire-Lord Ozai**

They had passed right through the fourth village, Moromuri ( _and really_ thought Zuko _this is getting ridiculous_ ) pursuing the enemy force. The battleship and escorts shadowing them up the coast made it unwise for the enemy to try and force another siege. Scout reports came in indicating the main body of the enemy had split, the larger contingent heading for Shiro Yoritomo and smaller force cutting northeast towards the mountains, most likely to gather supplies and raid the battalion's supply train if they got the chance.

Zuko felt certain that _his_ prey had gone with the smaller force. A raiding force often needed a strong hand to keep them from forgetting themselves and behaving more like common bandits than samurai, something he was sure the enemy Crab would have trusted no one but himself to do. So Zuko volunteered his company as a pursuit force, which the colonel gladly assented to.

"Goodbye camp," sighed Iroh mournfully as they split from the main body of troops. "Goodbye sake, goodbye geisha!" He sniffled as though on the verge of tears.

"You see what I had to deal with growing up?" Zuko said as he caught Rainesu blushing a bit.

He was willing, and finally able, to speak to her more informally now. She had vastly exceeded his expectations over the last month and he was now comfortably able to refer to her as "competent" in both sword and combat-bending. Amazing what the fury of a Prince, combined with the humiliation of being beaten by a ten-year-old ( _no, eleven now_ Zuko reminded himself) peasant colonial boy could do for one's work ethic. Ping at least had been more afraid of Zuko's wrath than he was of hitting the lieutenant, and in sparring with each other they had both improved by leaps and bounds. Rainesu still had a long way to go before he considered her fit for solo combat operations, but competent would have to do for now.

Once she had really grasped what had been done to her, how badly her trust had been abused, she was nearly as angry as Zuko had been. This, more than anything else, had made up Zuko's mind that she was worth the effort. The fact that she was somehow _more_ beautiful when she was angry had nothing to do with it.

 _Nothing to do with it at all,_ he grumbled to himself.

She laughed at his comment, a sound that, by itself, caused nearby soldiers to stand taller and march with more discipline. "I imagine that must have been quite difficult sir. You are to be commended for remaining a decent man with such an indecent tutor."

Zuko's heart skipped a beat. _Not nearly as "decent" as I would wish,_ he thought to himself.

The road to next village, Matomo ( _finally one that doesn't end in "muri"_ Zuko laughed) was an ambush waiting to happen. It was heavily wooded and the road ran back and forth through the foothills. Taking advice from _LEADERSHIP_ , confirmed by the almost unconscious nod of approval from his uncle, he dispatched scouts in a wide fan instructing them to look for natural or manmade depressions that might be used to conceal the enemy or to funnel landslide traps.

"…And also, I should mention, should you see any of the enemy, you should _kill_ them," Zuko said sarcastically, wrapping up his brief. This got a chuckle from the men. "Or at the very least come back and get me so _I_ can kill them, it may be the only way I can escape a Pai Sho game with these two," he indicated his uncle and the lieutenant, "without a loss." The men laughed.

"Unless of course, it's the big one." He grinned evilly. "The _big_ _one_ is MINE."

"Kill the ugly ones first!" they cheered. It had become the unofficial company motto.

* * *

The ambushes had been sporadic and seemingly always came at the wrong moment. That was unsurprising, as that was the nature of ambushes. The scouts were doing a tremendous job, finding landslides and diffusing or directing the company around them, but finding an enemy that could bury and unbury themselves as easily as breathing was never an easy task.

As they moved on, Zuko became certain that the big Crab, the enemy leader that had taken over after his duel, _was_ with the group he was chasing. It was just a sense, the way engagements flowed, soft strikes becoming massive incursions, seemingly large groups fading away, mere distractions, that told him it was the same person who had besieged him at Doromuri. He _understood_ him now, and understanding was the beginning of victory.

His uncle had been right, he _could_ respect an enemy. Finding, fighting and killing _this_ enemy would be the highlight of Zuko's campaign, bringing him more pride and honor than he could have anticipated. And if _he_ was defeated? Who better to lose to than a man you respected? In every encounter he'd had, the man had behaved with honor. He spent a night and a day, burying his dead commander. He'd preserved the lives of civilians under his control, even going so far as to leave the peasants of Boromuri enough food to survive the coming winter, necessitating this foraging excursion he was currently engaged in. Zuko's greatest hope was that during the battle they should meet so that he would have the honor of crossing swords with him.

There was a tiny part of Zuko that had another reason for excitement, though as they marched on he did his level best to squash it down. Vague half-formed dreams and plans had coalesced into the belief, the _hope_ , that if this campaign was successful, that if he behaved with true honor and diligence and managed everything _exactly_ right… his father would forgive him. Forget this foolish quest for the Avatar and bring him _home._

 _Ancestors, I miss home._

He missed his rooms, he missed the gardens with the turtle-duck ponds, he missed the way the wind would whip through the crags surround the city, sharp gusts bringing errant smells, of cooking spice, or the sea, or sulfur depending on the direction. He missed his sister, her self-satisfied smirk as she made some joke at someone else's expense.

 _Ancestors, let me go HOME._

It had been three years, surely that was long enough to make the point clear. Zuko would never speak out in disrespect to his father again. He would behave with perfect honor and perform whatever duty was required of him no matter how distasteful he found it. No matter if he thought the strategy was flawed. He would NEVER beg again.

 _Please. I want to go HOME._

It wasn't to be.

* * *

 **Summer, Year 8 in the reign of Fire-Lord Ozai**

They came to the village of Matomo, sitting on a small plain surrounded by a dense wood line of pine trees. Surprisingly the scouts had reported no fortifications and no enemy movement of any kind. So Zuko ordered a slow advance expecting the earth to fall out from under him or the Earth samurai to burst forth from the ground at his feet and surround them.

Nothing happened.

 _I know he didn't slip by me. Did he abandon the village already?_ Zuko wondered, mind racing furiously, considering what he could have missed. _This was IT, this was the crescendo of the dance. If he goes any further east he runs into the mountains and that makes his force irrelevant to the upcoming siege. He couldn't have... run away?_

The idea that he might have so misjudged his opponent was worrisome.

"Search the area!" he shouted. "Look for any disturbed earth where they might be hiding."

Sgt. Rin began making assignments.

"Where _are_ you?" Zuko asked quietly, mostly to himself.

Iroh looked as confused as he did. "Something is wrong nephew. They _should_ be here. This is a point of best defense… something is very wrong"

"Civilians, sir," Lt Rainesu said quietly.

A delegation had come out from the village and bowed low to Zuko.

"My Lord, welcome to Matomo," the village leader said nervously. "We beg your mercy, we have no weapons here, and will offer no resistance."

"Where is he?" Zuko said coldly, sneering at the cowardly peasant who would _dare_ to beg in front of him.

"My lord?" the villager said questioningly.

"There was a contingent of Earth-Kingdom samurai who came this way. Where. Are. They?!" Zuko snarled, advancing on the village chief.

"My Lord! There are no kingdom samurai here!"

"Then where?" Zuko roared, grabbing his collar and lifting him to eye level.

"SIR! You'd better come see this!" A scout shouted from the village.

"Watch him," he told Rainesu, and strode off, dropping the peasant.

Just beyond the village, they had found a patch of disturbed earth, and as Zuko arrived they had already removed the top layer of soil and found… bodies.

They were easily recognizable as the earth samurai, despite being entirely naked, and had been tossed haphazardly into a shallow pit then hastily covered over.

"Poison!" hissed Iroh, eyes going wide, "look at their throats!"

Their throats were indeed swollen to large size, the rest of their bodies were unmarked.

Save for the markings at their throats… where they had clawed at their swelling necks as they died.

Practically sprinting, Zuko ran back to the village chieftain and, grabbing him by the hair, dragged him bodily to the opened pit.

"What is the _meaning_ of this?!" he said through clenched teeth, his face bent in a rictus of a snarl, fury mounting with each breath.

"My lord we have no desire for violence!" the peasant leader cried. "We surrender! We surrender to you!"

Zuko needn't have bothered asking, it was _obvious_ what had happened. The nameless Crab had come to the village and told them the Fire-Nation was coming. The villagers had panicked, and instead of allowing the battle to happen, or simply fleeing, had instead chosen to murder their _own_ Samurai in hopes of appeasement.

Zuko's shaking hand closed around the peasant's throat.

"He had _honor!"_ he spat, his one eye large in a fury such as he had never known before. "He would have spent the lives of every one of his men defending you! He would have died himself guarding the road for your escape! And you… You repay him with this… BLASPHEMY!?" His voice rose, louder and louder until at "blasphemy" the village mayor burst into crimson flame.

 _You will NEVER go home,_ a voice whispered _. Burn it._ _Burn it ALL._

Zuko moved through the village engulfed in flame. His face contorted into a feral rictus of a grin as crimson flames spun around him seemingly of their own accord. Laughing madly, mind completely gone, burning everything, and everyone that wasn't Fire-Nation.

They ran. They _burned._

They screamed for mercy and he found he couldn't even remember what that word meant. They _burned_.

The whole village was engulfed in horrible red flame, burning everything, slowly growing hotter and hotter until even the stone began to melt.

IT _BURNED._

* * *

When Zuko's mind came back to him he found himself surrounded by a village-sized circle of flat melted stone, all trace that the village of Matomo had once stood there had vanished.

 _Good,_ he thought, exhausted. _Let this place be cleansed_ _. Let_ _it be marked forever in pages of history as an example of what happens to those who would thwart the natural order. Of those who cannot recognize honor when they see it._

The stone was too hot to walk on yet, so he sat down on the only cool spot to wait. He shouted to his men to set up camp across the circle from the mass grave. And by the time they were finished, it was just cool enough to walk on, and Zuko strode across to new camp. The men stared at him silently, in horror or in wonder, he neither knew nor cared.

Lt Rainesu wept silently, Zuko ignored her.

"Start digging graves, _real_ graves" he instructed, his voice calm and still as a frozen pond. " _We_ at least know how to treat fellow samurai."

They all nodded and silently got to work.

* * *

 **A/N:**

 **HEY! You made it to the end! Good job you!**

 **Now some author-y, ramble-y, exposition. Because I enjoy it. Skip it if you want.**

 **The Daikyu: The Daikyu, in case it was unclear, is a two-handed longbow. Excellent range.**

 **Lt Rainesu: One of the things I've come to love about writing is how sometimes thing really spiral out of my control. Or at least spiral out of my expectations. For starters, this "prequel" was originally intended to be like two chapters, just to set the tone for the AU. Then I looked up and saw it was already 30k words, much to my pleasure and growing horror. Lt Rainesu is one of those things that just popped up out of nowhere. I had already inserted a "very pretty lieutenant" in the previous chapter (for strategic "Zuko being awkward" purposes) and suddenly as Zuko was about to start yelling at Col Rai there she was again. So I had to come up with a name and give her characteristics. I found the idea of exposing Zuko to a situation that made him uncomfortable fun until it turned out she was less than good at kenjutsu (swordsmanship). I think Zuko has a lot of feelings about that, not just the ones that get described here. Aside from the surface reasons I think he is also rather furious, in a petulant sort of way, that other people didn't have to go through the same shit as he did. So of a "She didn't have to do so why do 1?" kind of attitude.**

 **Bit on the dark side: Yeah so that last scene was why this chapter is called "Snap." It a bit dark (or was intended to be anyway). I hope that isn't throwing anyone off. I also assure you that it IS plot relevant. I'd explain more but… that would be telling.**

 **Any other questions? Comments? General commentary? PM, or comment! I love feedback.**

 **NEXT WEEK on a very special "Avatar: The Last Dragon"...**

 **Iroh drinks tea! Zuko calms down a bit. And then he doesn't.**

 **TUNE IN. Same Zuko time, Same Zuko channel!**

 **Original post date: 20 May 2018**


	6. Roar

**A/N: The following is rated D for death.**

 **Reader discretion is advised.**

Chapter 6 "Roar"

* * *

 **Summer, Year 8 in the reign of Fire-Lord Ozai**

"Nephew we must talk," said Iroh quietly.

"About what, uncle?" Zuko was penning a short missive to Colonel Rai explaining that the enemy force was destroyed and that he would meet him at the gates of Shiro Yoritomo in a few weeks. The _details_ of how that had been accomplished were something that could be left until he saw the man in person. Even _attempting_ to write about what the barbarian earth peasants had done made Zuko's writing brush begin to smolder.

"We need to talk about… all of that," Iroh said, gesturing vaguely indicating the melted village and the growing field of graves his men were rapidly filling as the Sun sank behind the mountains to the west.

"What about _that?_ " Zuko said, his voice betrayed not a hint of emotion. He felt cold inside. Like ice had slipped into his spine. We welcomed it as a change of pace from the utterly scorching fury that had seemed to take him over.

"Well… You see, there are things that you should-"

"I made a mistake," Zuko said calmly.

Iroh sighed in relief. "Oh, thank the Sun! I had thought..."

"I thought that peasants were people," Zuko continued just as calmly, "I will not make that mistake again."

Iroh's mouth dropped open "Nephew! That is entirely… you can't just…."

"Can't _what_ uncle?" Zuko said his, voice hardening. "Can't see what is apparent, right in front of my face? I had thought of the peasants as a resource, something useful to be protected. Now I see more clearly. They are _animals._ Dangerous animals, without the ability to tell right from wrong, and will bite you when you least expect it."

"They are people Zuko! They were just frightened people looking for a way out!"

"They could have fled then! Taken their belongings and left, it's not as though we were hot on the trail!"

"You can't judge an entire group of people based on just his one instance, I taught you better than th-"

"DON'T PATRONIZE ME, UNCLE!" Zuko roared, leaping to his feet spilling his writing gear at his feet. "You knew what had happened even before I did! Before we even _saw_ the bodies! Look me in the eye and tell me you have never seen this before!"

"Never… never on this scale." Iroh looked taken aback, unused to being on the defensive in an argument with his nephew. "Sometimes it happens to Ronin wandering after being defeated in battle but never…" He shook his head.

Zuko's eye grew wide. "Does it happen in the Fire-Nation?" his voice was almost a whisper.

Iroh's eyes widened as well matching his. "Zuko it hardly means that-"

"Honorless animals," Zuko snarled, fury boiling along his blood.

"And what about Ping then?" Iroh retorted.

 _A fair point._

"PING!" Zuko shouted.

"Yes, sir?" The boy entered quickly, face blank.

Zuko tossed him his quill sharpening knife from the floor. "Stab my uncle, Ping."

"Wha- WHAT?!" Ping caught the knife and looked at Zuko in horror.

"Stab my uncle, or I will burn you alive." Zuko punctuated the sentence by bending fire into his palm

"S-sir?" Ping stuttered, "y-you're not yourself sir."

"I am perfectly calm Ping. Do you, or do you not, have a duty to me, Ping?"

"Yes, sir?"

"Then, _do it._ "

"No, sir."

"I beg your pardon?"

"NO SIR!" screamed Ping.

"Even though I'm going to burn you alive? Destroy you as utterly as I destroyed that village?"

"Yes sir," Ping said weeping.

"And why is THAT?!" asked Zuko his voice rising.

"DEATH BEFORE DISHONOR, SIR!" Ping screamed eyes shut tight, waiting for the end

Zuko turned to his uncle, the flame in his hand vanishing. "It would seem Ping is _not_ a peasant uncle. You may go Ping. Leave the knife please."

Ping dropped the knife and fled the tent weeping.

"That was _cruel_ nephew! And merely proved my point as well," Iroh said angrily.

"All that proved is that I, Prince Zuko, of the bloodline of Akodo can, after months of grueling effort, teach a _single_ peasant, who owes me his life, the meaning of honor. I might be able to teach a hippo-cow to dance as well given the same time."

Iroh shook his head sadly. "You must trust me Zuko, life is not always so simple as you would like. People make unfortunate decisions, but you must not allow the actions of a few to forever color your perception of the world. The peasantry are no exception. Their lives are harsh, brutal sometimes, and can be very easily cut short. Frightened people make mistakes. We must do our best to keep them safe so they do not become frightened."

"Well, unfortunately, uncle," Zuko said scornfully, indicating his ruined face, "I have little choice in the matter of whether or not I FRIGHTEN PEOPLE!"

They stood in tense silence for a minute, until the lieutenant poked her head in.

"Is… is everything alright sir? Ping… Ping seems to think he's done something wrong?"

Zuko sighed. "No lieutenant, Ping hasn't done anything wrong. In fact, he did very well. "

"Yes, sir."

* * *

That night Zuko dreamed of his mother.

 _Those were different days,_ he thought to himself, _when I was young and foolish and thought that if I did what was right everything would turn out in the end._

His mother had used to hold him and Azula in her lap by the turtle-duck pond and have him read them stories from his picture books. Stories about noble samurai and heroic deeds. Glorious battles where no one died and everyone was saved. He would practice reading aloud over Azula's shoulder as she traced the pictures with her tiny fingers. All the while Ursa would hold them, humming softly. She had always had a smoky, slightly flowery scent about her and Zuko's dream was so vivid it felt like the smell was right there again, humming in his nose.

He awoke with a start and found the scent, so familiar, was still there. He rose, moving quietly so as to not wake his uncle, and left his tent following the scent as it led him to Rainesu's.

She sat, back to the doorway, singing softly, an incense burner with two sticks alight flanking a small statue of a Lion.

 _She's a Kitsu,_ Zuko thought, _Just like mother. How had I forgotten?_

The Kitsu family was the most pious of the noble families of the Fire-Nation. Legend held that their family's forebears had in fact _been_ the Lion spirits from which the great Dojo got its name. Whether true or not a Kitsu always showed a great reverence for the spirits and the natural world, more so than any other family in the Fire-Nation.

Zuko quietly sat down, not wishing to disturb her at her prayers as she sang a lament for the fallen. The song rose and fell and danced along the edge of his memory.

 _Mother must have sung it before too?_

The memory of the day the royal court had received news of his cousin Lu Ten's death sprang into his mind. Ursa had hummed it softly holding a Zuko and Azula close, rocking back and forth. Two weeks later she had vanished while he was away with his tutors and he'd never seen her again. His father had become the Fire-Lord and offered no explanation, and while Azula seemed to know something she refused to admit it. Between training for his gempukku, dealing with his grandfather's death and his own ascension to crown prince Zuko hadn't even given his mother's disappearance more than a passing thought.

 _What is wrong with me?_ he thought. _Am I a monster? What kind of son doesn't look for his mother when she disappears? I must have, why don't I remember…_

The song ended, the spell was broken.

Rainesu bowed to the statue and, with a start, noticed his presence.

"Sir?!" she gasped, whispering. "Did I wake you? I'm so very sorry I… I couldn't sleep, not with all those unsanctified dead over there."

"My… mother was a Kitsu," he said lamely.

"Yes. Lady Ursa was my second cousin once removed." She smiled gently. "The family was so proud when she married your honored father."

"Do… do you know what happened to her?" His voice sounded plaintive, childlike to his own ear.

 _Pathetic._

"She left. I don't know much about it, sir. I was away at officer school. I understand she sent a letter to the family head saying she had to leave the palace on personal business. The new Fire-Lord never pushed us on the matter, so the assumption was that she was about some business for him."

"I…" he gulped, making a snap decision, "I would like you to speak freely Rainesu. I… I would like your honest opinion of my actions today." He managed to force the words out, regretting them even as he spoke them.

She paused, gathering her thoughts, unconsciously smoothing her sleeping yukata in a way that would have made Zuko turn a violent shade of crimson under any normal circumstances.

"Your uncle worries for you Zuko," she began, his name sounded odd from her. "As you know my family is charged with the spiritual well-being of the Fire-Nation, with its very soul. One thing that has always been clear throughout history is that the line of Akodo has always been the heart and the source of the country's passion. The _Will_ of the Nation. So to have your forefathers been known for their tempers. You of all people have seen the Fire-Lord's fury. Akodo himself was known to lose his mind with rage, burning whole countries in his wroth whenever his children were threatened. I believe that is what we saw here today. The rage of Akodo." She took a steadying breath.

"I have no doubt in my mind that Akodo himself would have approved of what you have done here today… but that was millennia ago when the world was wild and savage. Things are _better_ now." She smiled. "Your uncle's greatest fear is that you might allow your rage to destroy you, much as he believes it destroyed him."

"How would you know what my uncle-" Zuko began hotly.

"Because he told me," she interrupted him, voice still calm and smooth. "He asked me too…" her cheeks turned pink for some reason, "befriend you. Give you someone to talk to that was closer to your age. That was what our first practice session was supposed to be, an introduction." She blushed more deeply. "Until you noticed my…inadequacy."

"You still haven't answered the question Rainesu."

She began to weep. "It was the right thing to do highness, but… there were children in that village. I… I… DO NOT THINK THEY DESERVED THAT." Her words fell out in a rush.

 _Children? Sun's blood. I AM a monster._

Horrifyingly, she folded herself into a complete bow, forehead pressed to the ground. "I beg you, please highness, should the rage take you again, take your vengeance on me instead. I humbly offer my body and my life in the place of any child."

Zuko was puzzled for a brief moment _"body and life?" that's an odd phrase...ing… oh… shit._ His half face turned crimson in realization.

"I... I… Didn't…" he couldn't finish, not without breaking down into tears himself.

After a minute's battle for self-control he steadied himself, somehow. "You shame me. You are right, unequivocally right. Neither your life nor your…" he gulped, "body should be required for me to exercise self-control." He bowed deeply.

After a moment they both rose, Rainesu wiping dirt and tears from her face. "If I may ask one more thing. Freely, highness?"

He nodded, he was in no position to deny her anything at this point.

"I hope you will apologize to Ping." She gestured to the small lump of blankets in the corner, snoring softly.

 _Ash and bone, was he in here the whole time?_

"He often comes here to cry whenever he feels he has failed you in some way. I got the distinct impression he thought you were going to abandon him tomorrow."

 _What in the Sun's name gave him that idea?_

"It cannot an easy thing, to be an orphan in a strange land. You are all he has in the world."

 _How did I not know he's an orphan?_

Zuko shook his head in consternation with himself. "Request granted lieutenant."

"Thank you, Captain."

Zuko rose to his feet and gathered the small bundle of a boy up, which roused him slightly.

"Sir?" he said, not at all awake.

"Hush boy, I'm taking you home so the lieutenant can get some sleep."

"Yessir," he slurred, falling back asleep.

* * *

Without the fear of ambush, the journey back to the coast went quickly.

Zuko had decided to apologize to Ping by giving him his original copy of _LEADERSHIP_. A gift which almost drove the boy to tears again.

"Typically, a samurai receives a copy after his gempukku, but given how slowly you read you had better get a head start," Zuko said fighting back a smile.

"G-gempukku sir?" Ping seemed genuinely confused.

"Ash, boy! What do you _think_ you've been training for? So, you can protect my uncle's teapot?!" he yelled with mock rage.

Ping really did start crying then.

They spent most of the trip back talking about the book, Lt. Rainesu joining them as they went. Occasionally one of the three would ask a question or make a comment that no one had an answer for and all three heads would invariably turn to Iroh who, smiling benevolently like an ancient hound watching puppies, would give a response often more cryptic than helpful.

Zuko didn't dwell on the how close the three of them had become, it drew difficult parallels. Ping, perhaps because he was an orphan, definitely saw the Lieutenant as a maternal figure, Zuko could see that much once it had been pointed out to him. The reason he chose not to think about it was that _his_ role in Ping's little surrogate family _wasn't_ older brother. Which really only left him one role he could occupy. The very idea made his heart palpitate.

 _I will have self-control! I will not be a stupid hormonal child. I WILL have self-control._

Not that Rainesu made it easy.

"Sir?!" She gasped, horrified. "How is it you have so many scars?"

He had removed his shirt to practice bending on an evening and the lieutenant, showing her usual dedication, had arrived sometime later, practice sword in hand.

Zuko grimaced, an expression he had a natural advantage in. "I had thought everyone knew…" he rubbed his disfigured face

"That, yes sir. I meant all the other ones."

 _Other ones?_

"Oh. I got these," he indicated the star-shaped puckered skin, "from wooden splinters from exploding trees. This one," he pointed to his abdomen, "is from a scimitar. I got them at the end of the siege of Doromuri." Now that they were healed he was proud of those scars, they were badges of honor and duty fulfilled.

She had moved closer and lightly put a hand on another at scar at his chest.

"And this one?"

"Oh yes, Azula stabbed me."

"Her highness stabbed you?!" She looked stunned.

He laughed. "Oh yes, you think _I_ have a temper? Azula makes me look like a placid otter-cow. I can't recall what I did that time, probably broke a toy she favored. She got ahold of father's penknife somehow." He shrugged smiling fondly. "I have a couple of others from her…"

"These?" She indicated a set of gashes on the left side of his ribcage

He frowned, _where did I…_ "oh, no, those are from a wolf-bat. One of my tutors believed a student should best wild animals before being taught to fight as a person."

"B-before your gempukku?" Her mouth dropped open.

"Well yes, obviously. I mean I could bend so…" he scratched his head chuckling but embarrassed. "I got the first two but the third one…"

"Please tell me you are joking?"

"These are nothing. You should see the ones on the backs of my legs! If I didn't run fast enough I'd get switched, took me awhile to get the speed they wanted."

"You… you think this is normal, don't you?" Rainesu said stunned.

"Normal? I suppose so. I mean…" he looked embarrassed to be bringing it up. "I know you didn't…." he waved his hand vaguely, trying to indicate that she never got hit.

"That's not what I meant!" she cried her face heating as well. "Zuko- I mean SIR- there are retired veterans who don't have this many scars!"

He blinked. "Well, obviously they learned faster than I did. I... don't always pick things up the first time"

 _Real tactful way of saying you're an idiot, idiot._

"Sir, I've never seen a samurai who had half, no a _quarter,_ of these wounds before he'd passed his gempukku, and certainly not _purposeful_ ones," she cried.

 _That's stupid, how else are we supposed to learn to deal with pain?_ He thought, astounded. _Better NOT tell her about the spot on my leg where they had me practice battlefield stitching._

"You don't treat Ping like that, do you?" she said, eyes begging him to deny it.

"Well of _course_ not. He's… well he's Ping, isn't he? It's not as though he could become Fire-Lord one day."

"You think that makes it ok?"

"I'm an Akodo." He shrugged, nonplussed. "We have to be better."

Her eyes grew moist.

 _How dare she pity me,_ his father's voice hissed. His eye narrowed.

"I do not require your _pity_ Lieutenant," Zuko said in echo, his voice going hard.

"Yes sir, my apologies, sir," she said, stepped away and bowed, her eyes still full of pity. "If you will excuse me, sir." She walked away.

He stared after her. _What does she know about anything? She's not an Akodo._

His mind tried to conjure the image of her as a young girl going through the tests and lessons he had. He found it difficult to even imagine watching.

 _And that is why fate made her a Kitsu and not an Akodo. Can you imagine if she was AZULA'S sister? She'd have been eaten alive! We CANNOT be weak, the Nation depends on our strength._ He'd learned that lesson even _before_ he'd begun really training. Strength was everything.

"Sir, is everything alright?" Ping said, startling Zuko from his thoughts.

"Yes, everything is fine. Did you finish your overhead cuts?"

"Yes, sir!" Ping chirped happily, showing Zuko the blisters on his hands.

"Have the Lieutenant look those over before you go to bed. You are well on your way to proper sword calluses, but we don't want them getting infected," Zuko said, idly ruffling the boy's hair.

Ping beamed.

* * *

 **Summer, Year 8 in the reign of Fire-Lord Ozai**

They reached Shiro Yoritomo.

The fortress actually lay on an island a short way off the coast. The cliffs where the siege camp was located and the castle itself were high above the crashing waves of Chameleon Bay and there had been a large stone bridge that had connected the fortress to the mainland. _Had_ being the operative word.

"At least they're cut off sir. With our navy, besieging an island should be child's play" Zuko said to Colonel Rai after concluding his formal report.

"One would think highness," Rai said glaring at a selection of maps, "And yet the Garrison forces have managed to assault _this_ camp half a dozen times since we've gotten here. Somehow they seem to be able to cross the gap with impunity."

Zuko grimaced. "What precisely is the Navy doing out there? Fishing?"

Colonel Rai smiled bitterly. "In a way that's what the enemy may be doing. Blueprints from when we controlled the fortress indicate that there is, or was, a lower dock on the north side for smaller fishing craft." He indicated the place on a map.

"Was?" Zuko prompted.

"Yes. It seems to have disappeared. The navy assures us they're watching it like hawks but so far they've seen nothing. I believe that Lord Yoritomo unseals the dock at night and, using black painted fishing skiffs, sails to the cliff edge where his men bend stairways up to raid our camp and continue to forage for supplies." He slammed his fist on the table angrily. "In essence, they're not under siege at all. Our only option is to wait for more warships to encircle the island and make the net strong enough to hold them."

"Then why are we still here?" Zuko snarled, now also glaring at the maps. "We're nothing but a target."

"Despite the situation, my orders have not changed highness. I will assess the fortress for the oncoming siege, I only pray the rest of navy does not take their time in getting here."

"An interesting conundrum isn't it?" Iroh said later after Zuko had told him the situation.

"As interesting as a spear through the neck," Zuko grumbled, as he took his uncle's proffered tea.

"It strikes me as odd though," Iroh continued. "I've never seen an earthbender close off a whole port before, and believe me I have given them cause to do it."

"It's 'cause of the tides Akodo-sensei," Ping said idly.

Zuko stared at the boy. He was laying on his stomach, pen in his mouth, re-reading one of Ty Lee's letters. He often did that. Zuko believed he had developed a crush on the girl just from reading her handwriting.

"What did you say Ping?"

"It's the tides, sir. If the water isn't stabilized and you open the gates it'll swamp the boat. It's why they flood drydocks really slowly when they launch a ship."

"How slowly?"

"It can take a whole day for a big boat sir, a whole dock… that might take a while."

"So, how would you close off a dock then, if it were you, Ping?" Iroh asked, grinning savagely.

Ping put down the letter his eyes unfocused for a moment. "Well you'd need holes, always open to the bay and below the waterline, I would think. That way the water can come in and out as she wants. It would make the waves look weird though, probably be pretty easy to find once you knew what you were looking for..." He blinked. "Uh… my lord," he finished lamely.

"Rainesu! Get in here!"

* * *

"I don't understand sir. I thought I was supposed to run the messages?" Ping asked concernedly.

"The lieutenant can manage just fine," Zuko said. _Not to mention that it will spare the Colonel's feelings if it comes from her as opposed to an 11-year-old._ "You, however, have a new technique to learn, and though you will have plenty of time to learn it if this siege takes as long as I believe it will, there is no time to begin like the present!"

"Yes, sir!" Ping was excited as always.

"The skill I will begin to teach you requires quickness of mind and excellent visualization skills, which I believe you have just shown you have. I will warn you however, that I myself do not favor this style and you will be forced to find another teacher or master it on your own."

Ping looked stunned, as though he couldn't believe that there was a thing Zuko didn't know.

Zuko sighed. _This boy is terrible for my ego._

They arrived at the training ground and Zuko began to explain _Iaijutsu._

Iaijutsu was the art of the one strike. Draw, strike, resheathe. All in one, fluid, deadly and above all _fast_ maneuver. Zuko had been trained in the technique but he hadn't been lying when he said he wasn't a master. He wasn't even _good_ at it if he was honest with himself. Quickness was not his forte. However, he happened to know that Sgt Rin was _very_ good at it. He would give the Sgt a nudge in the boy's direction later, though it was important that Ping _ask_ the Sgt to tutor him, not the other way around.

Steeling himself, knowing that Ping wouldn't know the difference anyway, Zuko threw an apple into the air. Timing it less than perfectly, he drew his sword, nicked the apple, slicing off a chunk, and returning the blade to its sheath, reminding himself to clean the blade thoroughly later.

Ping was wide-eyed in amazement. "That was AMAZING sir!"

Zuko rolled his eye, _definitely not good for my ego._

" _That_ , Ping, was mediocre at best. As I said I myself am not even close to an expert in this technique. I can only give you enough guidance to get you started. But, I want you to keep Iaijutsu in mind always from this point, it will serve you well in the future."

Someday Zuko would have to tell him _exactly_ how important it would be for him. Iaijutsu was also known as "Duelist Style" because it was the most regarded formal non-bending style of dueling. No matter what Dojo Zuko got Ping into there would be people who took issue with him, either because of his heritage or his association with Zuko. Blood would have to be shed for Ping to survive. He had already spoken with his uncle and Rainesu about it and the three of them had decided that the Kitsu should be the one to sponsor his entry and Iroh would pull strings if he needed too. Zuko should remain out of it, hopefully, to avoid drawing his father's ire on poor Ping.

"So... if I'm going to be cutting fruit, sir… doesthatmeanIgetaSWORD?!" the last came out in a massive rush.

"No Ping you do not get a sword, but a boken is a weapon too. For now, we will only practice sheathing and unsheathing, and once you have managed that to my satisfaction… We will see if a sword can be found for you," Zuko said smirking.

It wasn't a crime for the boy to use a katana, though some would take offense. An adult would be present and watching anytime he handled the blade, and it had been no different when Zuko was a boy. Wearing a wakizashi on the other hand… THAT is what you wore when you were a samurai. To wear one, claiming to be a samurai without having passed through gempukku was a capital offense in every nation on earth. Conversely, a wakizashi was also an indicator that you _were_ armed, even if you never intended to draw it. All samurai benders at least wore a wakizashi, to warn people that they were armed. Not even Azula, who thought of swords as "big primitive knives" would be caught dead without her wakizashi.

The only benders who didn't wear one were the Ronin. The honorless, masterless samurai.

Ping drew and sheathed the boken from the sash at his waist, quickly growing bored with the task but unwilling to stop and disappoint Zuko. After a minute or two, just to avoid boredom he told himself, Zuko stood next to Ping, far enough away so that their swings wouldn't come close and practiced with him. The sun began to set as they drew and sheathed their weapons together, unconsciously beginning to move in sync.

Blade out. Blade in. Breath in. Breath out. They moved in harmony.

Until the alarm gong sounded.

* * *

The camp was chaos.

"Damn it. Ping, go get my armor!"

"It's at the quartermaster sir!" Ping said and took off running without having to be told.

"Status report!" Zuko bellowed, striding back towards his company's area of the camp.

"They're inside the camp this time sir!" Rainesu shouted, appearing at his side, fully armored.

 _Because of COURSE she's got her armor on immediately. Dammit! Of all the times to send my armor to the quartermaster._

"Well let's see about getting them _out_ of the camp!"

It turned out the Colonel had been partially wrong, the Earth-Kingdom samurai hadn't been carving steps into the cliff face. They'd been tunneling _through_ the cliffs themselves and this time had emerged somewhere near the middle of the siege camp.

Zuko started issuing orders, plans for assembly to ensure all his men were accounted for and defensive preparations and Lt Rainesu smoothly passed orders along to the sergeants as they went.

Surprisingly they were only attacked twice, once by a great monkey-bull of a man who made the mistake of going for Zuko, the unarmored man, only to find a red bar of fire protruding from his chest before he even had a chance to realize what an error that was.

The second time Rainesu finally had her first kill. She defeated a Mantis spearman, and screamed in triumph at the night sky, looking stunning as always as she did it. It might have been more impressive had the man not already had an arrow in his leg, but Zuko decided that now was not the time to quibble.

A runner found them an hour later after the initial attack, putting out a fire the raiders had set. With a gesture and a wave from Zuko the flames turned red and slowly subsided.

"Emergency staff meeting sir!" the boy shouted.

They reached the meeting point only to discover to their horror that Colonel Rai and several captains had been killed, and the executive officer had yet to be found.

The raid subsided as the remaining officers discussed options.

"Surely we break the siege? This position is untenable!"

"There's a word for that. We call that cowardice!"

"Don't be asinine! We _counter_ -attack!"

"Yes, with your secret force of earth and waterbenders you've yet to tell us about?"

 _This is getting us nowhere,_ Zuko thought angrily and departed, ordering Rainesu to stay and see if anything of relevance was decided. _LEADERSHIP_ would have answers he decided and if not maybe he could coax a hint out of his uncle.

Iroh was in his tent, staring at his tea set. He rose when he saw Zuko enter.

"Zuko…"

Zuko moved to his bed grabbing _LEADERSHIP_ where he had left it. "Yes Uncle?" he said distractedly turning to a chapter involving sieges.

"Zuko… you should sit down."

"Sit down? Uncle, there's too much to do! The Colonel is dead! Killed in the raid and nobody knows what to do. I don't suppose you…" he had finally looked up and seen how pale his uncle was. "What happened? Are you wounded?"

"It's Ping, Zuko."

"Dammit, what did he do? Drop my armor in the ocean? By the Sun I'll have him doing overhead swings until his flaming hands bleed."

"He's gone, Zuko."

"What in the ash are you talking about? Gone? Gone where?"

"He is DEAD Zuko"

"That… that's not funny Uncle," Zuko shook his head at the ludicrous idea. "Who would attack an unarmed boy…"

 _He had his boken in his belt._

"He… he most likely never felt a thing Zuko," Iroh said, his voice taking on a pleading tone. "You must not do anything rash nephew. Ping wouldn't want you to…"

Zuko walked out, dropping his book on the floor.

 _Why didn't you get your own damn armor?_ He raged at himself venomously. _Couldn't be bothered, could you?_

He broke into a run.

 _I told him! Never wear a weapon in battle or he'd be cut down!_

People called his name, saluted him, stumbled out of his way as his run broke into a blind sprint.

 _Maybe it's a mistake? Some other boy…_

He reached the quartermaster, the fighting had been heavy here, the sinkhole the enemy had emerged from was less than one hundred yards away. Sgt Rin was there, his arm in a sling, a nasty gash over his eye.

"Sir? Everything all…"

Zuko ignored him, looking for...

 _My armor._

The body was still clutching it desperately, Ping's boken still in his belt.

"Oh, Ash," Sgt Rin said, going pale.

"Go get the men. Tell them to build a pyre." Zuko's voice sounded calm at least.

* * *

 **A/N: Congrats on reaching the end. Hope you enjoyed it. Well, not that last bit obviously…**

 **And now, for your meta pleasure, some author notes!**

 **Hypocrisy:** **You may have noticed Zuko engaging in a some (reads a boatload) of hypocrisy in this chapter. How can he feel guilty about what he did in the war room when it is "death before dishonor?" Well to my mind that hypocrisy is the entire crux of Zuko's inner conflict and a major contributor to his bursts of rage. Zuko, whether in canon or in this work, is a giant mess of complexes and contradictory impulses between what he has been taught by his tutors and taught by practical experience, namely in the form of an Agni Kai.**

 **Child abuse:** **Zuko, most** _ **assuredly**_ **, is the victim of child abuse. NO person in the modern world should think otherwise. I think that, even in Zuko's world, the training he went through would be considered too extreme. Rainesu and Zuko most likely occupy opposite ends of the spectrum as far as severity of training went, you could expect normal Fire-Nation kids to be somewhere in the middle. Still a bit harsh by real-world standards but… no facing down wild dogs as a pre-teen. The issue I have with Cannon Zuko is that he seems to somehow** _ **know**_ **that what has happened to him is wrong.** _ **This**_ **Zuko has no idea. He has no real grounds for comparison, his only other data point is Azula who would be treated differently because she was a prodigy and genius. The practical upshot of this is that we have a Zuko who is conflicted but** _ **immensely**_ **tough. Zuko never gives up. He is basically the frigging terminator. That being said hopefully nobody thinks I am condoning child abuse here. Child abuse bad.**

 **The death of Ping: **_**Sigh**_ **. Damnit I am really sorry about that. It had to get done for story reasons. Can you see Zuko trying to capture the Avatar with a morality pet, who would have been by then the around the same age? Ping had to go. I am sorry to see him go, but it had to be done. This whole prequel to the main story was about informing us as to Zuko's character. Akodo Zuko is a grim, heavily scared (inside and outside) man trying to return to some version of normalcy. That being said, Ping's death was one of the hardest bits I had to write in this whole thing. I hope that came across.**

 **Like the story? Hate it? Have no feelings either way? Feel free to comment, pm or otherwise tell me about it!**

 **NEXT WEEK on a very special "Avatar: The Last Dragon"...**

 **Iroh drinks tea! Zuko does the thing with angst and violence!**

 **TUNE IN. Same Zuko time, Same Zuko channel!**

 **Original post date: 27 May 2018**


	7. Smolder

**A/N: The following is rated V, for vengeance.**

 **Reader discretion is advised.  
**

* * *

Chapter 7 "Smolder"

* * *

 **Summer, Year 8 in the reign of Fire-Lord Ozai**

Zuko laid the body down on the pyre.

He hadn't wanted to wait, staring down at… the body, but Rainesu had needed a few minutes to compose herself. Ping… would have wanted her there, so Zuko waited. She emerged from her tent like a specter, face and eyes dead, incense in hand. The pyres, for Zuko had lost three soldiers that night including Ping, were built just outside the camp by the sea.

Where he could see Shiro Yoritomo.

He placed the boken next to the body as well as his old _(PING'S!)_ copy of _LEADERSHIP._

"The names you borrowed from your ancestors you now return, unblemished, in flame." He intoned the simple ritual words over the pyres and with a gesture he ignited them, crimson flames engulfing them, growing in heat until a few minutes later there was nothing but ash.

He didn't watch. He'd turned as soon as they were lit, arms folded behind his back. To look at Shiro Yoritomo, looming over the waters of Chameleon Bay, stark and impregnable.

 _Let's see how YOU like it._

"Nephew, Ping wouldn't want you to do anything foolish."

"I'm just going for a walk, Uncle."

"And that bundle?"

"It's coming with me," Zuko rasped.

Zuko left the camp quickly and quietly. He was sure that if he saw Rainesu's pale miserable face he might change his mind, take her back to her tent and just hold her while she cried. He avoided everyone, including the sentries.

 _And what is the point of sentries when your enemy can come from below?_ He thought bitterly.

Reaching the tree line, he removed his uniform and put on the rough grey outfit he'd bought back in Ginasutra. He wrapped his katana's sheath, disguising it as well, with a piece of plain grey fabric from Ping's crumpled pile of bedding.

 _I should have got him a real cot,_ he thought idly.

As he placed his katana at his back and slipped the mask over his face he felt a calm settle over him, a sense of quiet certainty and purpose.

 _Yes, this was the right choice_.

With a burst of speed, he flew out of the woods and over the cliffs, diving out over the edge. He had just enough speed to avoid the jagged rocks near the edge of the cliff's base as he plunged into the warm waters of Chameleon Bay.

 _At least Ping learned to swim. If only I'd taught him the rest better._

It didn't matter. Ping was with his ancestors now.

* * *

It was a _long_ swim.

He reached the base of the island and swam around it looking for the entrance to the docks, the holes that Ping had been sure were there. Just as Ping had surmised the waves moved oddly on the north face of the island. Taking a last deep gulp of air he threw himself down, down, down into the inky black tunnel.

It total darkness he swam, felt, and guessed his way through the underwater tunnel, the edge of the cavern mouth and into the hidden harbor itself, his lungs beginning to burn for air. Finally, he could take no more and emerged as silently as he could into the dimly lit air. In a stroke of luck, he found himself directly under one of the wooden docks that served as tie-off points for the small boats the Yoritomo had used to fish the area.

 _And to murder my servant,_ Zuko thought darkly, _my protege, my friend._

He made the edge of the cavern, swimming quietly until he could safely exit the water in a dark area where no one would see the puddle he would leave. The docks were heavily patrolled, groups of armored samurai, tromping around so loudly he wondered if he really needed to bother trying to be quiet himself. Watching their marching patterns, he concluded he would have approximately ten seconds to exit the water and make his way into a nearby alcove.

 _5...4...3...2...1…_

He slithered out of the water as rapidly as an eel, using a fire kata to dry himself so he wouldn't leave a trail of water behind.

 _10...9...8...7…_

He sprinted, low to the ground. If a single guard so much as turned their head or scratched their nose they'd see him.

4...3...2...

He narrowly rolled into the alcove behind an incredibly pungent barrel of fish.

The samurai marched by.

Moving as quickly and as carefully as he could he sidled along the wall to an entryway and climbed the stairs, three at a time, up and away from the docks.

Akodo had written that a fortress was often like a tortoise, tough to get into but tender on the inside. Zuko had to say that he concurred with that assessment. After the dock, there was next to nothing in the way of security. It was just somebody's house, and not a particularly well-guarded house either and it remained that way until he reached the general's quarters at the top of the fortress. The general was even better guarded than the docks, and huge earthbending samurai stood watch, alert to any conceivable danger.

Their only failing was that they could not conceive of anyone making it this far.

Zuko elected _not_ to fight the giants. He might relish the challenge on the battlefield… but not here, unarmored, and with exceptionally poor odds.

" _Always choose the direction your enemy does not expect,"_ Akodo had written. Zuko remembered reading that passage aloud to Ping. Ping had said Akodo had a lot of common sense.

Every eye in Shiro Yoritomo was focused down; down to the waters of the bay, down to the docks.

Nobody was looking up.

Zuko climbed up onto the roof from the outside using a pillar and a decorative carving of a mantis as stepping stones. Slowly he made his way towards where the general's office would be, the blueprints he had glimpsed in the command tent somehow sharp in his mind. Praying he had the right spot he began to slowly, silently, pry the roof tiles up. Finding he had no good place to put them he flung them over the edge, almost losing his balance and following them once or twice as the chill midnight wind burst against him unpredictably.

When he had enough space to slide in he did so, becoming instantly warmer. From there it was simply a matter of quickly cutting the light wooden ceiling. Grasping a roll of cloth he had shoved up his sleeve he dropped through the ceiling and into the office of General Yoritomo.

The Lord of the Yoritomo family looked up from his desk, to see a figure all in gray land five steps away and waft a scrap of cloth at him. A black piece of cloth, with red crossed swords on it.

He looked down at it calmly. "Very well," he said, rising and taking up his sword from the rack behind him. He cocked an eyebrow at the intruder. "I don't generally duel people whose name I do not know."

 _I might as well, either he won't be telling anyone or I won't be around to care,_ Zuko thought.

"I am Akodo Zuko," he said, lifting his mask to speak and settling it back afterwards.

"The banished Prince?" the general said, seeming amused. "Odd, from the way you were dressed I would have thought you were a Bayushi _Assassin_."

Zuko responded to the barb by putting his hand to his sword.

While all swords of a certain length were acceptable to a samurai as a primary weapon, by and large, most of the Lion chose the katana. It was traditional, and there is very little the samurai of the Lion liked more than tradition. The Mantis dojo however preferred a one-handed sword, the Jian. The style left the other hand free to perform earth kata and to maintain balance. It was a style that favored quick movement and improvisation, thrusts and misdirection. It often caught traditionally trained samurai off guard, simply because the first time they saw it in action was also their _last_ time.

Akodo Iroh had seen it before, and that meant Akodo Zuko had seen it before.

The Duel began

Oddly the sounds of battle, ringing steel, crashing stone and flame, did not draw any attention from the guards outside. Perhaps the walls were too thick. Perhaps they still couldn't imagine that something dangerous had gotten past them.

The duel continued

Zuko found his mind wandering, he remembered discovering Rainesu's only flaw almost immediately, the way her stance had been off, her balance askew… just like Lord Yoritomo. It was so obviously apparent, but it was there, a subtle crack in the stone that was his technique.

The duel wavered.

Yoritomo almost had him. By exploiting Zuko's lack of depth perception and peripheral vision he created an opening that he almost managed to completely exploit. As it was he had still managed to score a cut along Zuko's arm, a deep cut along the left bicep. First blood to the enemy.

Zuko paused, still in a guard stance, and shook his head, indicating that they would continue.

The duel raged on.

It was his foot. Lord Yoritomo was a thin man, obviously in his fifty or sixties, and that age must have given him a touch of arthritis in his left foot. He was just a hair slower on that foot, his balance just a touch to the right. Zuko _understood._ The crack was visible, all that was left was to strike.

The duel slowed.

Uncle thought of fighting like Pai Sho, a series of changing rules and stratagems that meant that victory could be had at any point by either side if they were clever enough.

Zuko knew he wasn't clever.

He thought of fighting like Go. Stroke and counterstroke, each play a piece of the greater whole, each move building, crescendoing until…

The Duel Ended

...Zuko's blade ran home, just below the heart and he watched the light fade from Lord Yoritomo's eyes, his vengeance complete. He wished he could tell Ping about the fight, how important understanding was in defeating your opponent, how, in that moment, you knew a person better than anyone.

He departed, leaving the challenge flag with the dead lord.

* * *

Getting out was _less_ easy

The wind almost blew him away as he climbed from the hole in the roof, the post-battle shakes still upon him, much less fierce now than they had been almost a year ago in Doromuri. He sat for a moment letting his teeth chatter with the cold and the departing battle spirits. His mind felt clear again, as though a fog had been lifted. Everything had seemed so simple a minute ago. Get in, fight, kill. Now that he was thinking clearly absolutely _nothing_ about this was or had been simple.

Now he had to figure out how he was going to get out of this mess.

 _Probably should have thought about that first,_ he thought tying off a rough bandage on his wounded arm. _A_ _t least you got IN undetected you'll have time to-_

The deep rumbling sound of an Earth-Kingdom horn drifted up from the previously silent fortress, accompanied immediately by shouting.

 _Ash and bone,_ he thought angrily, _well at least they don't patrol on the roo-"_

"HEY! What's that there!?" came a voice on the rooftop not a hundred feet from him.

 _Stop thinking! Just run!_

He did and an arrow embedded itself in the shingles where he'd been a moment before.

He flipped down to the next level only to find _all_ of the giant samurai in front of him, either looking in horror through the now open office door at their dead lord or, unfortunately, staring at him.

Still somewhat giddy with blood loss and parting battle spirits Zuko felt a grin split his face behind his mask. He waved at them, like a fool, then took off running down the outer balcony. The cries of murderous fury behind him suggested that perhaps the wave had been a bit much.

He made the stairs and found them blocked by a confused looking Ji-samurai. Not stopping Zuko put his shoulder into him at full speed, barreling him over and, for a flight at least, Zuko surfed the body down the stairs. He was forced out of the stairwell and onto a middle level by what he judged, based on the deafening crash of armor, to be a battalion of troops furiously climbing the stairs.

 _Damnit, I need to make it to the docks!_ He thought, waiting patiently for the enemy soldiers to pass as he suspended his weight from a narrow ceiling just outside the door, his arms and legs braced. He wasn't sure that he could escape through the underwater hole again, he might be too tired for that, but at least he could try to fire the boats. There was no guarantee killing Lord Yoritomo had stopped the raids.

The massive group of earth samurai had passed but just as Zuko was about to drop down a voice from just the other side of the doorway stopped him.

"You two stay here and secure this doorway."

"Yes sir!" came two voices and the third person continued up the steps.

There was a minute's pause.

"What do you suppose is going on?"

"Dunno. Maybe a drill or something?"

The first voice groaned. "They would! And on my night off too."

There was another pause.

"Hey watch the door for me, I've got to piss."

"Are you serious?"

"Just watch the door!"

The first one, a stout slovenly man walked directly underneath Zuko yawning.

 _Don't look up, don't look up, don't look up, don't look up._

He stopped at the open rampart, adjusted his armor, and began to relieve himself over the edge.

"You're disgusting," said the second voice, more amusement than actual disgust in their voice.

 _If I could see the one behind me I'd be sure if I could take them both or not. Damnit._

The public urinator finished his business and turned around to return to his post. He looked up.

Zuko looked back.

"GHOST!" the fat man screamed and toppled backward over the rampart in panic.

"Spit and stones! Hong?" The first one swore rushing to the edge.

 _You have got to be kidding me,_ Zuko thought darkly as he dropped down behind him.

"Hong are you ok?" the second one said, peering over the wall.

Apparently "Hong" had managed to catch hold of something because his voice came back from over the edge. "It's the Ghost, Lee! The gravel-chewing _Grey Ghost!"_

 _The who?_ Zuko began to back away.

"What like the old wives' tale?" Lee said turning around. He saw Zuko, gave a yelp and to Zuko's utter amazement he _also_ jumped over the rampart.

 _THIS is who we've been fighting? This is pathetic._ Beside himself with disbelief, Zuko walked over to the rampart and looked down.

There was a garden trellis climbing up from the floor below and "Hong" had managed to tangle his pants in it and was dangling upside down. "Lee" had grabbed ahold of his midsection and was trying desperately to hold on despite Hong beating him around the head while swearing in pain. Both men looked up into Zuko's masked face simultaneously. Zuko cocked his head to the side as if wondering what sort of creatures they were. Both men screamed and Hong's pants tore through. Both men dropped... onto a decorative topiary of a swan.

Rolling his eye Zuko made for the stairs.

* * *

 _I suppose it makes a kind of sense,_ Zuko thought to himself, sprinting down the last stairs. _You leave your most incompetent soldiers somewhere you think is out of the way so they don't get underfoot... Or you just kill them._ That's probably what he would have done had he had those two idiots under his command.

He paused outside the entrance to the docks. _Only a complete incompetent would have left the boats unsecured. They can't ALL be that incompetent or we'd have conquered the world by now._

He was not disappointed.

A dozen men, all with lit torches stood around the docks, all but two watching the water for any sign of incursion. The remaining two watched the door. A sound strategy, excepting they had forgotten that they were in a cave.

Caves tended to be _dark_ without torches.

With a pulling motion with both hands, Zuko seized and extinguished all the torches in the room, plunging the area into darkness, and with the same motion flung himself low and into the water.

He felt the weapons of the two guards at the door go whistling over his head, swung in reflex.

He hit the water just a moment before one of the soldiers, with a presence of mind that almost made up for Hong and Lee, had lit his torch again with a spark rock. He silently swam beneath the docks, thinking.

It would be easy to light the boats on fire with his bending, the docks as well. But odds were that the men would remember that the flames had been a unique cherry red, and that would point squarely to Zuko. Strictly speaking, his actions here had been entirely honorable. He had entered the fortress, sought out his target, challenged him, had that challenge accepted and then defeated him. He hadn't even _killed_ anyone on the way in. However, while he had preserved the letter of the Bushido code, it could be argued that the _spirit_ had been left in tatters. Zuko hadn't cared about that earlier in the evening, but now that he was back in his right mind he wanted to avoid being identified.

 _I'm going to need that torch._

Abandoning good sense, as most people did in the pitch black, the guards had all clustered around the one lit torch and were struggling to light their own in the center of one of the docks.

 _Should have kept your backs to the wall, fools._

Zuko sprung out of the water, grabbing two by the collar, and dragged them back in with him.

 _I guess somebody never told them NOT to wear their heavy armor around deep water,_ Zuko mused maliciously as they sank, flailing.

The remaining guards were quick learners. They turned outward to face the water, their weapons to hand but Zuko swam under them and plunged his katana between the boards of the dock and into the foot of the man who'd actually managed to get his torch lit. The guard screamed, dropping his torch and the rest of the guards, again learning quickly what _not_ to do, backed away back towards the safer stone path, one of them pausing long enough to grab the screaming man with a foot wound.

They left the torch there.

Zuko rose from the water and picked up the torch. The light illuminated his mask, and the guards grew pale with fear. Zuko ignored them, choosing to leap onto the boat to his left and light its sails and rigging on fire. They quickly went up.

The guards recovered quickly, the sight of their boats burning snapping them out of whatever superstitious dread they had settled into. One of them sprinted to the door, to fetch help and two others pulled short bows from their backs and strung them. The rest gave chase.

They weren't fast enough.

Zuko sprinted from boat to boat, leaping the gaps, dodging arrows, remaining still only long enough to ensure that each boat caught flame, filling the cavern with light… and smoke. Thick and oily smoke, from the burning sails and pitch, rose from the boats and quickly the air grew acrid with it.

 _It's going to get hard to breathe in here soon, you'd better get moving._

He'd finished half the boats and turned to head back the other way only to find the chasing guards blocking his path.

 _Damn, now I'm going to have to fight-"_ A loud splintering CRACK drew everyone's attention. The mast on the first boat Zuko had lit had decided that enough was enough and had snapped, falling directly onto the unlit boat on its other side, lighting it on fire as well.

The guards turned back to Zuko, defeated looks plain on their faces. While they couldn't see the ferocious grin on his face they could see his wave as he flipped over the side of the boat and into the water.

* * *

The tide was going out.

 _It's likely the only reason I made it,_ Zuko thought lying flat on a rock just outside the castle island. The slow inexorable drift of the ocean had given him just enough headway to survive the long tunnel. Now he was so exhausted he could barely move. He just lay there on the rock breathing in the salty air.

 _Ash, I'm tired,_ he thought stupidly, _maybe I should take up running again?_

His mind flashed back to his duel with the enemy general, the cut along his arm, the rough bandage he'd bound it with.

His left arm was numb.

 _Damn, it fell off. No wonder I'm so tired._

Using everything he had he forced himself into the sitting position. He stared at his right hand until after a long bit of concentration a small amount of red flame gathered. Preparing himself internally he thrust the flame at the wound.

It hurt, but not in the way he expected. The red flame wouldn't burn him.

"That's just… irritating," he muttered to himself, sounding drunk.

Steeling himself, he focused on controlling his chi as hard as he could.

 _J_ _ust turn orange, damn you._

After a moment it obliged him and he thrust the heat into the wound. This time the flame seared him, sealing the wound and seeming to start his heart again. He didn't cry out. It hurt certainly, but not worse than anything else he'd endured, before or after his gempukku.

Certainly no worse than his face had hurt.

Energized by the pain in his arm, he sized up the cliffs as the dawn broke over the top of them.

* * *

Zuko staggered into camp.

He'd somehow managed to find and change back into his uniform and then made his unsteady way back to the camp. The guards had initially challenged him, but his face was more convincing than any challenge and password.

 _Just as well,_ he thought, _I don't think I could bend a candle right now._

He entered his tent to find his Uncle sitting in his usual place beside his Pai Sho board sound asleep, oddly without any tea.

 _Perhaps I should call Ping to..._ Zuko shook his head in wonder at his own foolishness. _What do you think you've been doing all night?_ Yawning he shambled over to his bed.

 _I think I will sleep… for about a month..._ he yawned again. He heard a noise and turned to find Lt Rainesu entering his tent at speed.

 _Great, I'll wager we're under attack agai-._ The thought was cut off as she slapped him across the face as hard as she could causing his rage to awaken like an explosion going off underground.

 _Can't bend a candle, huh? I'll burn her! How dare she strike me! How DARE SHE!_ He drew himself up.

"How DARE you abandon your post!" She said flatly, glaring at him.

The rage vanished like the stars at dawn. Of all the things he had thought she might have said _that_ had not been among them.

"I… uh. I was-" he tried.

"It doesn't matter where you were, _highness."_ She invested the word with scorn, the first time he'd heard anyone do it since he'd left commander Zhao's ship. "What matters is that you weren't here when your soldiers needed you."

"Wha- What happened?!"

"Do you _care_?" she hissed.

"Rainesu you know I-"

"That is Lieutenant Kitsu, _Sir,_ " she snarled. "Nothing _happened_ , except the men had to mourn a little boy that they all cared for while their _commander_ was nowhere to be found. You _abandoned_ them."

"I was-"

"IT DOESN'T MATTER WHERE YOU WERE!" she screamed. "You weren't HERE! I needed- We ALL needed you here! And you weren't!" despite her best efforts her eyes began to grow moist, "and nobody knew where you were, you snuck off and took your swords and…" her fingers began to knot at her abdomen, tears falling freely now. "I didn't...know...what to…" she fell forward and began sobbing into his chest. Almost without thought his arms rose and enfolded her.

 _I should kill her._

The thought was cold, brutal, practical and, more than any thought he had recently, it sounded like his father.

 _She makes people WEAK. So weak they couldn't even hit her when she was a child. NOW look at you. Holding her, wanting more than anything to make her feel better. It was HER weakness that made you care for Ping. Her WEAKNESS has infected you._ Even as he thought these things Zuko knew he could never hurt her. HE would just have to learn to be stronger.

He'd need to get away from her. He couldn't be strong while she held him, smelling faintly of incense and some other scent that was all her. _Dragonberries?_ He couldn't be strong while she stood there weeping, making him think of Ping and how much he had come to enjoy teaching him, seeing him succeed. He couldn't be strong right now, holding her, rocking gently back and forth as she mourned the boy he'd already avenged.

Their surrogate _son._

He closed his eye and slowly he went from supporting her to being supported. The last bit of energy he had, had flown away. He wasn't strong enough.

But he WOULD be.

* * *

 **A/N: Penultimate chapter! Are you as excited about that as I am?... Probably not. That's ok though, I am enthused enough for the both of us.**

 **Hope you've enjoyed the work so far, if not feel free to tell me why. Feel free to tell me anything, I do enjoy feedback.**

 **Now some notes**

 **Similarities: Yes, absolutely this infiltration into the castle is similar to the one at the north pole. This was Zuko's warm up, and the reason he even thought he might be capable of that, let alone getting into Pouhai to rescue the Avatar. However, this time (perhaps because his cause was righteous) he gets to be successful.**

 **Hong and Lee: Because in any military unit there are at least two goofs who really** _ **really**_ **shouldn't be there. Their initial dialog was pulled from two stormtroopers in "A New Hope." Perhaps they will be recurring characters? I'm not sure yet.**

 **Not too many notes this week I guess. Again please, like, kudos and review!**

 **NEXT WEEK on a very special "Avatar: The Last Dragon"...**

 **Iroh drinks tea! Zuko gets a boat, has a revelation and takes a trip!**

 **TUNE IN. Same Zuko time, Same Zuko channel!**

 **Original post date: 3 June 2018**


	8. Extinguish

**A/N: The following is rated F, for Finale**

 **Reader discretion is advised.**

* * *

Chapter 8 "Extinguish"

* * *

 **Late Summer, Year 8 in the reign of Fire-Lord Ozai**

The surrender would be finalized in the morning.

In the month since Zuko had conducted his raid into Shiro Yoritomo, there had been a great many changes around, and in, the Fire-Nation war camp. Due to the unfortunate death of Cpt. Kiko, Lt Rainesu was now Captain Rainesu; Battlefield promotion. She had been excited at the prospect, despite being still desperately sad at both Ping and Cpt Kiko's death. She had gone to great pains to assure Zuko that he was still welcome to come to her with anything he should require, and in fact, had asked him to join her for supper and conversation about _LEADERSHIP_ on numerous occasions. Despite his earlier convictions as to the danger she posed to him, Zuko hadn't had the heart to turn her down.

" _Danger is best faced eagerly, to do otherwise is the barest form of cowardice."_ Akodo had said.

Zuko wasn't sure if Akodo was the best role-model in this case, even in legend, the man had been a notorious womanizer.

Zuko was also now sixteen, not a particularly significant birthday in the Fire-Nation, but it did mark the one-year anniversary of leaving his seclusion on the mountainside. His uncle had bought him a razor, which he said was "traditional." Although exactly _what_ tradition it was a part of he couldn't be bothered to say. Rainesu, who had somehow discovered when his birthday was, presented him with a small Lion prayer statue, like hers only male. She'd carved it herself and it, like everything else the woman did besides fighting, was stunning.

He'd thanked her, saying it was wonderful, and would always remind him of her and his mother, and the connection the shared. She had seemed strangely nonplussed.

There had been no further attacks on the siege camp. The morning after Zuko's return had seen smoke rising out of the interior of Shiro Yoritomo and there had been no movement of any kind after that. A week ago, three more warships had arrived to begin the siege in earnest. Within hours of their arrival soldiers waving white feathers, a sign that they wished to talk terms, had emerged from the castle, rebuilding the bridge back to the mainland as they came.

They swore up and down that an ancient spirit, the "Grey Ghost" had entered the castle, slain their Lord, and set fire to the lower castle, causing many to become sick with the inhalation of fumes. The claimed that it was the will of the spirits that they surrender, nothing at all to do with the arrival of more warships, who were already disgorging several battalions onto the east side of the bay.

Despite the surrender, Zuko was not best pleased by the arrival of the warships as they brought Zhao, now a full commander, back into his proximity. Worse still, because of Colonel Rai's untimely end, Zhao was now the ranking officer on site. He took over the negotiations and had been heard to loudly exclaim that it was fortunate he had arrived otherwise the two armies would have just spent the rest of eternity staring at each other across the water.

He would claim the credit for the victory.

But worse than that, worse by _far,_ was that from the moment he arrived he had been seen to take an... _interest_ in Rainesu. It had started off subtly, a smirk at officer introductions, an "accident" in the seating arrangement at the first staff dinner which found Rainesu sitting next to him instead of part of the way down the table. It had grown from there into full invitations for dinner, which she accepted at first but soon began to make excuses to decline. It was a difficult thing to avoid a higher-ranking officer who did not wish to be avoided. Zuko infuriated by the man's presumption simply waited, just hoping that the fool would give him the slightest provocation, the slightest _reason_ to be offended so that he could challenge him outright.

It came, but not in the way, or with the outcome he expected.

He was heading to Rainesu's tent, enjoying the summer's breeze, _LEADERSHIP_ in hand when he heard voices.

"Sir, I don't what you-"

"You know perfectly well what I mean, but fine I'll say it plainly. You're beautiful, and I want you."

Zuko froze, a horror in his guts far worse than any fear he'd ever had of dying.

 _She's an adult,_ he thought blankly, _she can do whatever she-_

"Sir, I'm flattered but I-"

 _YESSS!_ Zuko roared internally

"Is it the fraternization rules? You needn't worry, no one will breathe a word of it. They never have before," Zhao breathed.

Rainesu's voice grew sharp, formal. "Commander, I believe you have had too much to drink this evening. I request you return to your quarters until such time as you have returned to your senses."

 _She can handle this. She doesn't need me to interfere._ Zuko thought drawing up straight, managing to loose his white-knuckled grip on his katana

"The only thing I'm intoxicated on is your beauty"

 _Oh, that's just disgusting_.

"Sir. You need to leave."

There was a pause and a soft noise like a cough.

"Everything in this camp is _mine,_ " Zhao said, not sounding pleasant at all now. "I'm not leaving until you understand that."

 _Did he just…?_ Zuko was so stunned it took him a few seconds to process. Then the sounds of a small scuffle broke out and Zuko was through the tent flap in a heartbeat. Only to find Zhao on his stomach, his right arm twisted painfully behind his head, Rainesu's knee between his shoulder blades, and snarl of fury on her face.

" _Subtle undertow,"_ a distant part of his brain thought. _W_ _ater style. I taught her that kata._

He hadn't remembered summoning the red bar of fire to his hand, but it was there now and he had something to use it on.

"Zuko! Stop!" Rainesu said quickly.

It took every fiber of willpower he had to do so, but he did. He crouched down staring at Zhao.

 _This is HER kill,_ a part of him whispered, _Just watch and enjoy the show._

But she had other plans.

"It seems, sir, you've made a mistake," she paused, "Mistakes can be rectified."

"Rainesu? No!" Zuko said stunned.

She looked right at Zuko, something akin to sadness in her eyes "Zu-, His Highness needs a ship. I believe you have _four_ at the moment, with more on the way? A _task force_ I believe you mentioned? Surely you can spare one of those ships," She leaned in close to Zhao, tugging his arm painfully. "For the man who just saved your life," she finished with a snarl.

"Ow, ow yes yes anything just…" he was staring in horror at the bar of fire in Zuko's hand.

"We'll have it in writing, before dawn or I'll accuse you of attempted rape before the officers assembled as witnessed by the crown-prince."

"And _then_ I get to kill you," Zuko said, grinning evilly.

Zhao fled.

"Are you alright?" Zuko asked.

She was dusting herself off and glared at him. "Of course I'm alright, he was so drunk he could barely stand, I haven't the foggiest idea how he thought he was going to be able to…" she blushed furiously.

"I should have come in sooner but I thought you had the situation in hand. I never thought he would…" Zuko shook his head still, shocked by Zhao's actions.

"I did have the situation in hand, didn't I?" she said, looking pleased with herself. The emotion passed and was once again replaced by an odd sadness "You will be leaving now I suppose?"

"If you wish to be alone I understand complete-"

She sighed and shook her head. "Permission to speak freely highness?" she said smartly.

"Of course."

She stood on her tiptoes and gently kissed him on the cheek. "You really are an idiot Zuko."

* * *

 **Early Autumn, Year 8 in the reign of Fire-Lord Ozai**

They sailed away.

After the formal surrender of the fortress of Shiro Yoritomo, there had been a feast which Zuko, in spite of his uncle's haranguing, had skipped. He was far too busy planning. They would need fuel, supplies, naval training for his infantry company, not to mention himself. The list went on and on.

He'd inherited a new executive officer, a navy man by the name of First Lieutenant Dosei Taro.

"I liked the last one better," Iroh said with a grumble.

Despite his uncle's rather unfair misgivings, the new lieutenant was both knowledgeable and efficient. From the looks of him, he was a bit on the thin side and wore spectacles, Zuko judged that he might be only _slightly_ less useless at personal combat than his previous Lieutenant had been. _Had_ been. The memory of Rainesu breaking Zhao's wrist that night would bring joy to Zuko's heart for years to come he was sure.

Despite Zhao's orders, the ship had not come without cost. The previous commander, no doubt goaded on by Zhao, had been so incensed at his removal that he'd challenged Zuko to an Agni Kai, a fire duel.

Zuko destroyed him.

It hadn't even been remotely fair. Zuko had grown up sparring with wild animals and _Azula_. The man's firebending wasn't even a challenge and the look of impotent fury on Zhao's face made the victory doubly sweet.

Zuko stood alone at the bow of his ship, hands folded behind his back as the made their way south towards the Eastern Air Temple. Iroh came up beside him.

"So, _that_ was an interesting detour," Iroh said musingly.

"Indeed, Uncle."

"...I never did apologize nephew."

"For?"

"For choosing the eastern temple. If I'd selected any of the others…"

"You had no way of knowing. Besides you didn't force me off the boat at Doromuri, my honor did."

They paused, watching a giant elephant-koi surface, the light of the setting sun shining in the azure waters of Chameleon Bay.

"Still, a shame you couldn't find a way to bring your girlfriend with you," Iroh said contemplatively.

"...My _what_?"

Iroh looked at him bemusedly "Pretty girl, red hair about yea high?" He gestured to Zuko's shoulder level with one hand.

Zuko flushed. "Rainesu wasn't my girlfriend!"

" _Lover_ then. Did you think I didn't notice? You'd been sneaking off to her tent since Matomo."

"We were talking about tactics!"

"Oh? Is that what the kids are calling it these days?"

"No! We were reading _LEADERSHIP_ together!"

"...What? The whole time?"

"Yes!"

"Well… she was _trying_ to sleep with you the whole time."

"What?! No! She-"

"She never wore her sleeping kimono as you read, maybe one shoulder bare?"

"Well, it was _her_ tent Uncle. She can dress how she li-"

"She never sat next to you, pressing against you, pointing out passages in the text?"

"How else would she sit, if we were-?"

"She never offered to give you a shoulder massage after a training session?"

"She… she was just concerned about some muscle pain I'd been having!" Even Zuko thought that sounded a bit lame.

"She never used the phrase 'I place myself in your care'," Iroh said fluttering his eyelashes at Zuko.

" _That,_ is a traditional greeting to one's superiors!"

"Maybe a hundred years ago!"

"You're being ridiculous."

Iroh narrowed his eyes. "She never, _ever_ , handmade you a personal gift which would have deep significance to the both of you and always remind you of her?"

Zuko thought of the little lion carving now occupying his cabin.

"Oh…" Zuko's eye grew wide in surprise. "Shit."

"You really are an idiot aren't you nephew?"

"Apparently."

Another elephant-koi rose and fell in the distance.

"If you weren't interested you could have at least let _me_ take a swing at her," Iroh grumbled.

"Uggg, Uncle!" Zuko cried in disgust.

* * *

 **Summer, Year 9 in the reign of Fire-Lord Ozai**

Zuko had decided he quite liked the sea. The solitude, the wind, the storms. It also made bending practice more effective, the water laden air serving to make bending more difficult, like wearing a weight vest while running. Iroh postulated that that was what had forced Zuko's flames to change color, a strengthening response to difficult conditions.

In the year since Shiro Yoritomo's fall, they had sailed around the world.

The Eastern Air Temple was desolate and barren, his uncle and he meditated in the same places as the air monks had. They learned nothing.

They'd sailed north past the wide mouth of Chameleon Bay around the Ba Se coast to the Northern Temple. They'd found it _inhabited_.

By _flying_ people.

Furiously excited Zuko donned his grey clothes and mask and entered silently, seeking the Avatar. He found nothing but normal people, not an airbender among them. Most evidence that it even had even _been_ an air temple had been knocked down and filled with odd contraptions and mechanical devices. He sent a letter to his sister describing the odd machines, wondering how it was that they could fly without bending.

He wrote her more frequently now. He wrote all three of them, his sister and the only two friends he had and remarkably they wrote back. Nothing important, always trivial, just gentle reminders that they were still alive, and they knew that _he_ was still alive too.

Alive and far away from home.

Zuko sailed west from the occupied temple and was engaged by Water-Tribe forces. Their little wooden boats were no threat to his steel one, but their bending was. He defeated them, roaring and cursing and igniting their ships while taking heavy damage to his own. He limped south to the northernmost Fire-Nation colonies.

In the long months while his ship was being repaired he fought engagements against bandits and Earth-Kingdom raiders, helped in the collection of taxes, caught a notorious thief and saved a girl from drowning. None of it mattered, no one knew anything about the Avatar.

He sailed west and found the hidden inverted city, the Western Air Temple, birthplace of the last air Avatar, Yangchen. Iroh and Zuko meditated there, found inscriptions about and _by_ Yangchen. Iroh was fascinated, Zuko less so.

"Interesting. It says that Yangchen believed that the Avatar cannot be separate from the world, because her duty is _to_ the world," Iroh said, trying to get Zuko interested.

Zuko only grunted. He had become more taciturn since the colonies.

 _I should be in the colonies, fighting our enemies and bringing order to that near lawless place,_ he thought privately. _This quest for the Avatar is a waste of time._

He sailed on.

He'd sailed south to the newly re-named Fire Fountain City, to take on coal and have the ship refitted. As Zuko watched the new statue of his father blast fire into the air a scrawny boy tried to pick his pocket, he turned to destroy them and was forcibly reminded of Ping. He let him go.

 _Still weak, I must be STRONGER._

He sailed on.

The Southern Air Temple had nothing of interest, save a door that could only be opened by air bending. Zuko could barely force himself to care.

 _What am I doing? This helps nothing, accomplishes NOTHING,_ he raged, features now set in a permanent scowl as he stood at the bow, arms behind his back. _All these temples and we still know next to nothing._

He set a course back to the fire colonies.

For six months they sailed up and down the colonial waters. Zuko would stop in towns, ostensibly to resupply, promote justice through the land and seek rumors about the Avatar. But in truth, he had simply begun to crave violence, if only for the excitement, the feeling of _doing something_. Often times he would slip away from the ship while his men were on shore leave, don his grey woolens and mask, and enter Fire-Nation military installations to read their classified documents to see if there was even an _inkling_ of the Avatar's whereabouts. It was not technically illegal, and it was certainly much faster than going through proper channels. It was also a much faster way of getting his mail.

He was required by naval doctrine to submit his intended course and destination to Admiralty. Not only would they know if he became lost, but they would be able to plan for his arrival, sending his mail and pay, as well as his soldiers', to the next port. In a letter written in the Admiralty's normal scathing tone, they also saw fit to promote Zuko to Lt Commander, exchanging his Army rank for a Naval one.

He still received reports from his "spies" but there was very little of any import in them. More important was the was the fact that somebody cared enough about him to put ink to paper, no matter how blackmailed. Mai's father was promoting the sale of fruits, her little brother was annoying. Zuko detected a bit of falseness there, if she really did dislike her brother as much as she claimed she wouldn't bother writing about him so often. Ty Lee never changed, her letters were sunshine to Mai's gloomy clouds.

Azula wrote semi-regularly, always formal. Always countering anything positive she had to say with something vicious and amusing. He missed her.

He turned seventeen and still had found NOTHING.

Somedays it seemed like his life was just like the ocean, seemingly endless in all directions with only a few stops to break up the monotony. He spent long hours in his cabin, or on the bridge of the ship, teeth gritted in silent fury as he tried to think of new places to search, new ways to locate the Avatar.

He trained, he wrote, he bent, he _seethed._ Every day he woke with the light of the sun on the horizon and his fury seemed to grow and grow. Every breath was a gasp, every word was a snarl, every path… a waste of time.

One day in a fit of pique he ordered a course change.

South.

To the South Pole.

..and his destiny

-END BOOK 1-

* * *

 **A/N:**

 **Hello and congratulations, you've made it to the end! Oh, you few, you happy few, you band of readers!**

 **So, what's next you ask? Why book 2 of course! Not only is it done and ready (minus its last, final day-of-publishing edit) the first chapter will be up in… a few hours. That's RIGHT! DOUBLE POST! (/sound of powerchord)**

 **I'll have more to say about it in the notes of that next chapter, but you should have been able to guess that this NEXT book is where we enter canon (reads as: the events of the series). Look forward to it!**

 **And now the meta-bits (aka the parts most people skip past)**

 **Akodo(not actually a womanizer): I'd like to point out that, despite how I will be characterizing him, in L5R lore Akodo, the founder of the Lion clan, is NOT a womanizer. At least not to the best of my knowledge. Sometimes little things just slip into my writing and I like the way they play out. So in THIS work, Akodo (Zuko's very distant, but direct ancestor) is a bit of lady's man. I regret nothing.**

 **Could have expanded on most of this, but didn't: This chapter is SHORT. Painfully short. Going forward you should expect chapters to be at LEAST 3000 words(NOT including A/N). Should I Fail in that regard you should expect another double post. But that being said a lot of time and interesting things happen in the background of this chapter. Zuko has a duel. Zuko has adventures. Zuko sails around. Zuko, however, does NOT find anything to do with the Avatar. That was kind of the point. Zuko knows he's doing all this stuff which** _ **should**_ **be earning him a great deal of honor and glory, but he can't get any of it, can't feel proud of** _ **anything**_ **until he finds the Avatar.**

 **Honestly, this whole first book is just setup. When I originally sat down with the idea for this buzzing in my head the events of this book were planned to be, at most, a chapter or two. I wanted to accomplish 3 things, Zuko is older, has combat experience, and has a reason to hate peasants. When I looked up from that awesome torpor that good writing brings on I found that I had 30k words… and I hadn't even gotten to Matomo yet. It was then I realized this bad mamma-jamma was going to have to be broken into separate arcs. Following this point the will correspond roughly with the 3 seasons of the show. The chapters will roughly follow the episodes of said show (provided of course that Zuko is in them)**

 **I hope you enjoyed this work even HALF as much as I enjoyed writing it and I REALLY hope you'll stick around for the rest.**

 **LATER TODAY on a very special "Avatar: The Last Dragon"...**

 **Iroh drinks tea! Zuko shouts a lot!**

 **TUNE IN. Same Zuko time, Same Zuko channel!**

 **Original post date: 10 June 2018**


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